Democracy For Sale by Peter Geoghegan

Peter Geoghegan’s Democracy for Sale is a damning insight into the dark money which underpins huge areas of global politics. From law-bending to lawbreaking, via loopholes, shady deals and revolving doors, Geoghegan guides us through the ugly side of modern politics – or indeed, politics full-stop, as political corruption is hardly a new invention.

What is new are the increasingly intricate ways in which funding, influence and connections can be obscured or disguised, and the growing global reach of secretive financial influence. A significant portion of the book is devoted to the use of new technology to disguise dark money, and the entanglement of social networks in spreading advertising and misinformation whose origin is undeclared. The book, whose publication was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, foreshadows the findings of the Russia report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee released in July.

Some of the names which feature prominently will be familiar – Dominic Cummings, Aaron Banks, Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and Vladmir Putin. The names of a few less well-known individuals also crop up again and again in an alarmingly intertwined web of connections, friendships and professional networks.

Geoghegan has spent years reporting on dark money in politics for openDemocracy, where he is investigations editor, and is most critical of those who give and receive dark money. Though he is also damning of the regulators, who in many cases move painfully slowly, then