 Ex labor shadow Chancellor and briefly an MP for change UK Chris Leslie has found a new job he is now and you really could not make this up chief executive of the credit services Association yes that's the UK body representing debt collectors debt collectors right let's let's get up the tweet announcing the news. You see Chris Chris Leslie there smiling that now he is going to be advocating for the people that knock on your door and take away your computers if you haven't managed to pay your debts in time. He is now chief of the bailiffs I suppose Leslie joins a long line of exchange UK MPs well as long as you can get there only 11 of them to begin with who have found themselves in jobs representing the worst of vulture capitalism. I'm so remember Angela Smith who when she was a labor MP was writing articles opposing Corbyn's policy to renationalize the water firms so nationalizing our water firms could make us the dirty man of Europe again says Angela Smith now can you guess where she works after losing her seat in the 2019 general election after defecting from the Labour Party you guessed it a private water firm. So she is working for Portsmouth water but they are not the only two who have gone on to shill for you know the worst end of of corporate greed I suppose Chaka Umana and Luciana Berger have both found top jobs at the corporate PR firm Edelman. And this actually I think is the worst one so you know Chris Leslie being the representative of the bailiffs is kind of funny Angela Smith being you know a boss at now or on the board of a private water firm is predictable. But Chaka Umana and Luciana Berger them them standing for Edelman is the most getting jobs senior jobs at Edelman is the most telling one. Because Edelman is the world's biggest PR firm very big very important company is the world's largest company specializing in laundering the reputation of global corporations and human rights abuses often. They've got top jobs there let's look at over the last 10 years some of the clients that Edelman have represented so you've got the Saudi Arabian government this is in the last decade just in the last decade news corporation so Murdoch's news corporation they provide crisis communication management during the phone hacking crisis. And the trans Canada corporation they were hired so Edelman were hired to launch campaigns in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline so that was transfer transferring oil from the Canadian tar sands to Texas obviously going through famously lots of Native American lands huge protest movements against it Edelman were there. Not only to you know represent the company but to to create lots of fake grassroots campaigns in favor of the pipeline. Now this is called astroturfing. The most famous example of this astroturfing is when you've got a company who sort of sets up a fake grassroots campaign. Now you might think the change UK MPs it's no surprise they've been employed to do this kind of thing because that was kind of what the party was in the first place. So many especially people's vote organization sort of started up the big big funding and and their support base often overstated. But yeah I want to go back to the most famous example of Edelman's astroturfing which is very relevant in terms of thinking about ex labor MPs going to work for this organization. Now this is from Wikipedia. Now some people say we shouldn't quite Wikipedia. I actually think it is the best source of information but I have also checked it in the 2000s Edelman created a front group called the working families for Walmart which said it was a grassroots organization but was actually funded by Walmart. It paid two bloggers to travel the country interviewing Walmart employees one of whom was a senior Edelman employees sister according to the New Yorker everyone she talked to was delighted with Walmart. In 2006 business week reported that the public relations effort which was positioned as a grassroots blog was actually paid for by Walmart. The New Yorker called it a blatant example of astroturfing and I said this example was particularly you know relevant when we're thinking about ex labor MPs going to work this company. Because the reason this this astroturf campaign was started working families for Walmart was to fight claims being made by trade unions at that period in time that workers in Walmart should get proper pay and proper working conditions that they should be able to you know they shouldn't be on Kind of like zero hours contracts where you have to work different shifts over a month and you have to just accept whatever hours the boss gives you really low pay the unions were organizing against it and Edelman were employed specifically to do you know OPPO research to do oppositional campaigns against the trade union. And now this is the kind of organization which labor MPs who we were supposed to will be you know distraught when they left the party. You know these are people who really care about left wing politics they want to get into government to make a difference for people you know know what they want to do is well promote themselves fundamentally especially looking at Chakarumana and now sell themselves to the highest bidder even if that means oppositional research against trade unions that's the kind of company they've now moved to work for. I mean these aren't the only MPs that have done this we're going to go on to some more in a moment first of all Aaron your comments on this I presume you're not surprised that these are the kind of jobs that these people have gone into Chris Leslie chief of the debt collectors Angela Smith on the board of a private water firm and Luciana Berger and Chakarumana now senior jobs in the world's biggest laundering organization laundering not money but the reputations of of Vulture capitalists. Well people who work for companies like Edelman like Luciana Berger and Chakarumana now their primary motivation is to become millionaires who do the bidding of billionaires. And it's really it's sad that these people wherever Labour Party members let alone members of parliament in terms of what motivates them and it really does reveal the the complete bullshit that they spun for years of the Jeremy Corbyn now look. It's fine to disagree with Jeremy Corbyn it's fine to think that the political direction he took the party under even if they'd won you can disagree with those policies that's absolutely fine. But what they did was they often tried to disagree or dispute those policies from the left you know Chakarumana would say you know real progressives think this you know real progressive will you know back some crazy right wing policy because they want Labour to be in power to implement some batshit right wing policy. And we need to understand it for what it was and if you look at how change UK were received by so much the media particularly progressive media right particularly you know parts of BBC the Guardian. It really does expose the complete finality and lack of principle and values and actually sort of propositional. Politics they have in the 21st century what do you want to do about climate change demographic aging and equality the housing crisis. You know immigration how do we how do we deal with the globalization of production etc and I look we can have that conversation they don't care about any of that. And even the worst of Edelman doesn't care about any of that it's about making as much money as quickly as possible doing the bidding of billionaires. And I think it you know it really is the kind of signature ends that Chakarumana in particular the end of his political career he's quite honest and saying he won't be returning to frontline politics he was never there in the first place. But somebody like Chakarumana Edelman is exactly where he should be. It's not only the people who who went via change UK who ended up shilling for the worst the worst sections of capital we've got Michael Duggar followed up his stint to shadow culture secretary by getting a plum plum job representing betting firms. And so these are the people who are campaigning against the kind of rules that someone like Matzab cousin is promoting which would mean that. Businesses are less able to exploit people by getting them addicted to fixed or betting machines for example these these provide no social value whatsoever all they do is suck money out of. Sometimes vulnerable people who are often don't have that much money to begin with and then these sort of vultures are just sucking it from them providing nothing to society and then Michael Duggar's up there sort of representing these people against the campaigns of often ex gambling addicts who are trying to get some regulation of these toxic industries he's there promoting it and again Michael Duggar he's the kind of person you know when he was when he resigned from the cabinet he's a giant this is the kind of thing that Jeremy Corbyn will rep will regret will come to regret getting rid of this giant of the labour movement he's always been there. You know representing ordinary people not like these metropolitan elite now what is he doing he's working for. Millionaire billionaire gambling firms to try and make sure that they don't have to be subjected to any kind of regulation which mean they can't you know thoroughly exploit vulnerable addicted people. But obviously we couldn't talk about you know ex labour MPs going on to do completely a moral things without talking about their Godfather their hero. Because these people aren't anomalies these people are following in a tradition of. A labour prime minister and the one that is most celebrated by the labour right as the person who's he was the person who really in instantiated labour values in government then what did he go on to do Tony Blair. So within a year of leaving office Tony Blair so he's again this guy was already rich you know your wages prime minister quite big he got a very good book deal but then he still just had to make more money. Doing more a moral things so within a year of leaving office he became a paid advisor to a Korean oil firm so you I energy corporation they had extensive interest in Iraq. You know you might think if people are already saying the reason they went into Iraq was for oil maybe there are so many jobs in the world why do you have to get a job for an oil firm with interest in Iraq you know how difficult is it to not do that. He also entered into a Tony Blair a 16 million pound deal with the Kazakh regime so advising the government between 2011 and 2016 so for five years and he appeared in a promotional video stating that the then president. No soul turn Nazarbayev showed a combination of the toughness necessary to take the decisions to put the country on the right path of a degree of subtlety and ingenuity these are Tony Blair's words in a promotional video. For the president of Kazakhstan who got he's electively got 95% of the vote so make of that what you will and the position of the Tony Blair took in this promotional video he's been. Paid always is associate is his company's been paid 16 million pounds is what human rights watch said whilst Tony Blair was still representing this government or advising this government. Kazakhstan heavily restricts freedom of assembly speech and religion in 2014 authorities closed newspapers jailed or find dozens of people after peaceful but unsanctioned protest and find or detained worshippers for practicing religion outside state controls government critics including opposition leader Vladimir. Koslov remained in detention after unfair trials in mid 2014 Kazakhstan adopted new criminal criminal executive criminal procedural and administrative codes and a new law on trade unions which contain articles restricting fundamental freedoms and are incompatible with international standards torture remains common in places of detention. Now that's the government who Blair was paid millions to launder their reputation. And you know what the sort of I mean it's a terrible defensive Tony Blair but what people say you know the Iraq war well this was someone who wasn't taking a dogmatic anti-western position he was against dictators he was against people who suppressed trade unions why were people support obviously people who are campaigning against Iraq war were not pros the damn anyway very few of them again you could count on a couple of hands right but but the defense of Tony Blair was he cares about human rights he wants to spread human rights around the world maybe he fucked up maybe he should have prepared for after the war etc. But his heart was in the right place this is someone who will accept millions of pounds to launder the reputation of essentially dictators who are suppressing trade unions in their country and this is still you know the hero of huge sections of the labor right. And you do have to you know when people tell you you know if you're in the labor party you are left wing you're progressive how dare you point at a labor MP and say maybe you're not actually on the side of ordinary people maybe you're not in this to try and make other people's lives better maybe you're actually. You know in this just to promote yourself and ultimately you know launder the reputations and support the bad guys right with people saying oh you should it's divisive to say that about labor politicians this was the prime minister and much of the party was built in him in his image as you see with the with the jobs that people like Chris Leslie and Chuck Romano have gone into it's depressing isn't it really well it's depressing but also you know we don't know how it ends and the reality is if the labor. Goes back to kind of a blair is marked to which many people want around Stalmer people are Luke A curse and so on. They celebrate the Vietnam war they say America were even today they'll say the United States and Vietnam using agent orange was they were the good guys carpet bombing civilian targets war crimes. They'll say that you know it's good to sell weapons to the Saudis because it stops the Houthis or an extension of Iranian you know influence and on your every peninsula. I mean you know there's a million people have got cholera of had cholera in Yemen I mean this is just outlandish if labor goes down that path and it's it's effectively a political corpse. And then from the from the perspective of socialists from the left you don't want to be it's a it's a dead body it's going nowhere I'm quite right to if that's what it returns to Tony Blair's property portfolio is worth about 35 million pounds just his property portfolio. This isn't somebody who needs these jobs like you've rightly said. And yet he can't help himself and yet he can't keep on making these rare interventions in British politics which are anything but rare they're kind of you can almost set your watch by every month. I just want to correct you on something Michael you think it's the labor I wasn't just the labor right last year many people who identifies liberals. We're saying that if only we had people in done James O'Brien if only we had Tony Blair back he was great. He really wasn't you know the economy was doing very well because of financial services financialization debt leverage growth from you know 2000s 2008 and then obviously all collapses 2007. So you want that back but but that wasn't Blair Blair was actually just quite an authoritarian politician he didn't really have much going on upstairs and particularly after the first time you know the first labor term after 97 2001. I think it's a very commendable government introduces freedom of information. Minimum wage devolution extensive constitutional reform pumps a lot of money into the NHS towards the end of the final year or two of that government. After that it really goes off the rails particularly after Iraq and again going back to this interview I conducted in Cobain. He says to be quite frank after 2010 you don't really hear about extraordinary rendition because it stops the Tories and the Lib Dems aren't doing stuff like extraordinary rendition. You want hearing about sort of you know Britain being complicit in in these torture black sites because we're not really doing it. And again I would suggest particularly for Britannia is a fantastic book to learn a bit more about this stuff you know Britain was that was unlawfully and we call it extraordinary rendition the proper word is kidnapped kidnapping people sending one family which included children to Libya. When it was governed by Gaddafi as part of the deal which saw Shell go to the country and have a contract to extract its mineral resources you know we were kidnapping somebody and sending them to Gaddafi to be tortured. And this was incredibly common it was being signed off by the likes of Jack Straw and various various foreign secretaries. And yet we still have people like Jack Straw intervening in the public debate and saying that Jeremy Corbyn is this the left is that we need to do this. These people are not just politically vampiric they're criminal you know the only thing that Jack Straw should be facing isn't a TV camera it's a judge and jury and yet they're still here. But like I say this is this is a play which still hasn't seen its final act we don't know how this is going to conclude are we going to see the reputations of Blair of Straw redeemed and relaunded in the 21st century. I really hope not.