 Labour are doing pretty well in the polls, but there are new concerns about the political direction of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer. This came this weekend when the Times gave a pretty worrying report about attempts by the Labour Party by its new leadership to try and woo back rich, wealthy donors. So we can get up part of this report from the Times. So Keir Starmer has launched a charm offensive to attract Labour donors who ended their support under Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to reduce its reliance on trade union funding. Now let's just stop there for a moment because Keir Starmer has launched a charm offensive to attract Labour donors who ended their support under Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to reduce its reliance on trade union funding. So it's very explicit, they don't want to be reliant on the vehicles of organised Labour, they want to be reliant on rich people. What policies do you think being reliant on organised Labour encourages? What policies does being reliant on big business encourage? You can work it out. The Labour leader is believed to have begun sending personalised letters to lapsed donors asking them to consider renewing their support for the party. If the fundraising drive is successful it could return Labour to the Blair era in which it competed with the Conservatives in raising millions from the rich and famous, some of new Labour's biggest supporters included JK Rowling. But this is the big one, this final paragraph. So among those who have received letters from Sir Keir is David Abraham, the new castle property tycoon who donated more than 650,000 to the party under Tony Blair. So Mr Abraham said that Sir Keir had got off to a good start but there's still a lot of resistance to what he's doing and we said that he wanted to see the expulsion of members who made anti-Semitic comments. This is someone who wants to see more expulsions, obviously it depends what he interprets as an anti-Semitic comment. But this issue I want to focus on is the 650,000 pounds this man donated to the Blair years. We've already heard, you know, this time's right up which is from a briefing is saying this could return the party to the Blair years. Now I've got a clip for you which I'm really pleased to be able to show you. I was delighted when I found out the, you know, the relevant clip today when I was looking through this and for a background on this guy. So he was a massive donor as it says to new Labour 650,000 pounds to the party under Tony Blair. This was very controversial at the time and because he was a property developer, Labour were in government and just as you've seen with Robert Jenrick you had a big donor to a political party having decisions made in their favour. Now for background to this we're going to go to our old friend Paul Mason hosting a news report 12 years ago. This is property and that means he's routinely involved with seeking planning permission for projects here in the North East. At the highest level planning is a political process both in Whitehall and in the Labour-controlled councils of the North East. As you can see there are quite a lot of them. It's politicians that get to decide on Mr Abraham's projects. So knowing whether he's giving them money is above all relevant to that. In July 2005 Abraham's company Durham Green Developments submitted plans for a business park next to Junction 61 on the A1. Two directors of the company Ray Ruddick and Janet Kidd had already given 77,000 pounds of Mr Abraham's money to Labour. By October the highways agency had blocked the project but one year later and 182,000 pounds more donated to Labour the agency lifted its objections. Another area of the North East Mr Abraham's took an interest in was Sedgefield the then constituency of Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2005 and again this year a Mr D Martin of Acorn Residential Estates is listed as a consultee for Sedgefield's local development framework. Actually Mr Abraham's and D Martin are the same person. So what representations did Mr D Martin make to the borough council? Actually none says the council. However with the constituency Labour Party it was different. He was said one local Labour politician a hanger on. Another said he often sent a note to Tony congratulating him. He was invited to Blair's farewell speech says one source as someone you could rely on not to stand up and heckle. Despite not living there nor having any business with the council he came along to various things of Tony's as a member. I was when Paul Mason was still an anti-capitalist model at the heart of the British establishment and it's very real blast from the past there. Anyway let's focus on the issue at hand. So we should say Abraham's was cleared by the police of any wrongdoing because he ended up being under investigation for donations he made to the Labour Party which were related to the fact that he was he was donating to the Labour Party by proxy and so obviously we have laws in this country whereby if you donate more than five thousand pounds to a political party it has to be completely public so that people can assess and analyse conflicts of interest. In this case there were clearly lots of conflicts of interest because he was trying to develop properties where you know the government and local councillors had had control over whether or not it got approved or not but he was donating to the party via proxy so via mainly his employees and this was so controversial that Labour's general secretary at the time had to resign right because this was such a scandal this took up the time of like Gordon Brown it was a you know took up the news cycle this was literally we were in government he was Prime Minister at the time and you know it just seems surprising to me this is what we want to go back to. Abraham's also an interesting character according to Channel 4 News report from the time he won selection to be a prospective Labour Party candidate but was then deselected after it emerged that the people who he introduced as his wife and child at the selection meeting were just pretending to be his wife and child so in return for him paying for their accommodation and the boy's school fees so this is someone who was this is the kind of people you know who as Paul Mason says in that report this was someone who was you know very close to Tony Blair often had a front front row seat at Tony Blair speeches and this is who you know a new Labour were in bed with property developers people who wanted decisions from from the government to be made in their favour and yes I mean it seems like there's no there was no smoking gun as to ah yeah he gave the money so he gave him the you know the the go the go ahead for this particular building which means that the police have said no no no law has been broken but you can see how going back to this period of time where Labour can very easily and plausibly be accused of corruption because they've got you know these very wealthy people giving them money which they've become reliant on Labour at that time had very few members who can then use that leverage to get decisions made in their favour I mean this is really not the direction we want the party to go in actually before I go to you I've got one more fact about this guy's very interested character so he got deselected after that selection where he introduced his fake wife and fake child it then turned out that he said he was 41 and he was actually 46 but let's talk about instead of sort of strange pathological lies let's talk actually he's probably got loads of money to sue us and say he lied twice maybe it's not pathological Labour desperate to become the party of landlords instead of the party of trade unions what do you make of it yeah it's really strange because the one thing that's inarguable about the Corbyn period was they the party had money the party had money you can just go through their sort of annual you know the the end of year kind of projections and forecasts and the financial year behind etc they were regularly raising more money than in terms of party in the run-up to the election last year they were struggling because it was you know it was a very short turnaround but in the period of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership 2015-2020 they raised a lot of money and you have to remember in 2008 Labour was almost bankrupt right and that is and that was the period of time you just brought up with that clip that seems to be the plan in terms of what they want to go back to regarding resources and I know lots of people say actually having lots of members is bad fewer members is good but members pay subs right that's that's indisputable again you know having lots of members means you have lots of money and I don't know I think the kind of the the management of Labour on this side I think it's it could get very messy if they lose lots of members and they have we don't know how many because you get there's a six months kind of stay with regards to direct debits being cancelled we don't know yet but if they lose you know a couple hundred thousand members unions start sort of playing silly buggers they will again have to go with a begging bowl to property developers and millionaires and that's not good it's not it's not the people oh the brand what was it a good brand to have Peter Mandelson have to resign because of this kind of stuff the Hinduja brothers the Eccleston affair was that good for the brand no it wasn't you know for whatever good things Labour did in government with regards to policy I don't think many people say yeah they're dealings with millionaires and billionaires looked really good reflect really well on the project nobody thinks that so why when people say it's a return to your labour I said that's not quite true come on Stammer's his own person but this looks like a return to you know it's like the worst thing you would want to do when you say return to your labour what do you mean you mean you mean when in general elections you mean you know initiating a mixed bag of policies you mean often quite brave constitutional reforms like devolution and we all want a professional campaigning organization right no no one's disagreeing with that we all want well written speeches but what we don't want is a party that's in hoc to landlords because one I mean it looks really bad and two it's incredibly bad for democracy I want to bring up one one more bit of evidence with relation to this particular story because not only is courting big donors a threat to our democracy and completely undermining of the the radical potential the potential radical potential of the Labour Party not just obviously very much waning since Stammer became leader but anyway it's also very tacky so these these campaigns to try and get the wealthy to donate money to the Labour Party well tacky as hell let's get up this graphic it's a a page from a brochure which was sent out to wealthy donors this was shared by Gabriel Pogrand from The Times and it invites you to join the chair circle membership I don't why they call it like it sounds real freemason stuff doesn't it you can join the chair circle jerk society where you all sort of suck up to kids don't call it what it is caviar with care that's what it should be called let's get it back up because we can see what you get by by becoming part of the chair circle why do they call it the chair circle um you can get regular communication from the party's fundraising he's very exciting invitation to a branch ahead of Labour leaders speech at annual party conference not clear if Stammer's going to be there or not um invite only you know I think you just sit in a room with a load of dry rich people while you get served sort of like ex-benedict or something and then that's sort of like yeah we're in the chair circle it's very exciting um the strategy updates is probably the most sort of you know strategically interesting because that's when you get proper access um to people at the top of the party to put forward your concerns and sort of say in hush tones sort of like if you don't you know do x y z we're probably not going to find you anymore you know just just saying it I'm not I'm not this isn't me trying to bribe you this is just me saying the fact um and then finally invitation to a chair circle welcome reception at Labour Party Conference hosted by Angela Rainer um so one more one more chance where you can have some some access for cash have y'all with gear or canapes with gear you decide I like caviar with gear caviar with gear and maybe I should work as the sort of headline writer for so many times you should be in charge of high value donors at the Labour Party I think that would be do you imagine oh that would be very successful um well all you say it just looks it looks so sleazy how can we make this look as sleazy as possible the fucking chair circle as I because it's not even it's like that is you're getting a bit conspiratorial you know someone said you oh there's this thing called the chair circle which is a very high values true for the Labour Party and they're all very close to to Keir Starmer who was on the trilateral commission imagine now he's joined that now he's joined the chair circle imagine Dave Evans the general secretary of Labour and Morgan McSweeney brainstorm imagining the guy I'm thinking magic circle magic circle kind of accountancy firms yep okay I'm seeing that and we power civil society business chair yeah we can't call it directors because we don't want people to think they actually have power but it has to imply they have power but also be deniable so we won't call it the director circle we'll call it the chair circle it could be a game it could just be just be a game that you play we all sit in the circle and share a bit like musical chairs but with lots of money and lots of interest and people sort of asking if you can give them planning permission in this particular local authority real new labourese