Tim Picton

Whales, beards, mules and VIPs: the secret world of high-rolling professional gambling How elite gamblers buy betting accounts of losing punters to bamboozle bookmakers

Earlier this week, the Guardian's @annaisaac.bsky.social revealed details of a lawsuit alleging that the Brighton FC owner, Tony Bloom, used Reform UK funder George Cottrell as a "beard" to place big bets.

The case highlights a secretive gambling world the public rarely gets a glimpse into.

The British state is addicted to secrecy - we need to fight back Our politicians and officials are using public money to keep citizens in the dark, says Heather Brooke

🔴"FOI is the democratic canary in the coal mine. When official information flows freely, it signals that power is shared. When it’s withheld or delayed, it signals the opposite: power concentrated in the few."

Vital by Heather Brooke on Democracy 4 Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/why-the-br...

Seven years on the UK’s offshore centres are still failing on transparency

📝 BLOG 📝

UK Overseas Territories committed to corporate transparency.

Seven years on, most have failed to deliver. On our latest blog we look at our new research reveals the scale of the problem and what needs to change.

Read more ⤵️
www.transparency.org.uk/news/seven-y...

Senior Coalition Manager (Interim) - Prospectus Recruitment Agency Prospectus is excited to be working with the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition to recruit for an Interim Senior Coalition Manager. This is a 6 month contract with opportunities for the role to become perma...

🔍 The @ukanticorruptioncoalition.org is looking for an experienced and motivated interim Senior Coalition Manager to lead our group of #anticorruption organisations through a crucial six-month period.
🙋 If that sounds like you, apply at the link below before 7 December.

Crypto donation lessons from Europe: What recent scandals in Spain and Czechia tell us about the risks of crypto for political finance - Spotlight on Corruption With the Elections Bill on the horizon, the UK government is in the process of weighing-up whether to bring in strict controls on political donations made in

For anyone that would like some evening reading material that isn't related to the Budget, here's my latest blog post for @spotlightcorruption.org on what we can learn from recent political scandals involving crypto in Spain and Czechia ⬇️

www.spotlightcorruption.org/crypto-donat...

Two peers suspended from House of Lords for breaking lobbying rules Lord Dannatt and Lord Evans of Watford were filmed breaking rules in undercover footage recorded by Guardian

NEW: Lord Dannatt and Lord David Evans of Watford face suspension of 4mo/5mo respectively from the House of Lords after a parliamentary watchdog ruled they had broken lobbying rules. Reports from the conduct committee follows Guardian investigations into the peers.

w/ @robevansgdn.bsky.social

The CPS has now released the text of some of Nathan Gill's WhatsApps discussing payments

Included in them is this - Voloshyn telling Gill "and other 2 for David you have already with you"

As I revealed last month, David Coburn joined Gill on his Oct 2018 trip to Ukraine and joined the 112 board

Ex-MPs working for lobbyists use privileged access to parliament A number of former politicians who are now paid to help influence policymakers have visited the parliamentary estate, but deny doing so for lobbying

Former MPs who then go on to work for lobbying firms should be banned from holding a parliamentary pass.

I don't care whether they want a haircut or a "cuppa with old colleagues."

It's not as if I have a pass from any of my old workplaces still.

@spotlightcorruption.org right to call this out.

Well done Peter, I thought it was excellent!

‘Politicians actually taking action’: six world mayors defying climate-sceptic populist leaders From Sierra Leone to Milan, cities are crafting their own rules and innovations in the face of rising temperatures

‘Politicians actually taking action’: six world mayors defying climate-sceptic populist leaders

🚨 👍 🧵 1/ As our friends at the @ukanticorruptioncoalition.org say, the forthcoming #AutumnBudget could bring in more revenue if we provided more support for HMRC and our enforcement agencies.

We wrote about this in a major report earlier this year:

anticorruption-responsibletax.org/cleanfoundat...

I spent a really long time amassing everything you need to know about Labour's vast deals with fossil gas-loving, Trump-donating AI giants out to pepper the world with climate-wrecking data centres...so you don't have to!

My reporting for @desmog.com 📖👇

Dominic Cummings Lobbied Officials to Hand 'Test and Trace' Contracts to Palantir After Secret Meeting With Peter Thiel Exclusive: Boris Johnson's senior advisor pushed for Covid contracts to be handed to companies run by Trump-supporting tech billionaires Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison

🚨 Dominic Cummings Lobbied Officials to Hand ‘Test and Trace’ Contracts to Palantir After Secret Meeting With Peter Thiel

+ New emails released to Byline reveal Cummings involvement in VIP Lane deals.

Read my latest @bylinetimes.bsky.social report here: bylinetimes.com/2025/10/31/d...

🚨Two years+ after @GoodLawProject revealed Luxe Lifestyle were on PPE Vip Lane thanks to the help of a former minister, the government finally corrects the record.

But, as I detail in my book Viplanebook.com this is still the tip of the iceberg.

It’s likely that 70 firms were on VIP Lane not 52
🧵

Disabled children left waiting months for benefits due to DWP delays Single mother Maryam had to wait three months to get child disability allowance for her seven-year-old daughter, who has kidney cancer.

Disabled children are having to wait for nearly four months to receive benefit payments due to government delays, with hardly any applications being processed on time according to the latest figures.

By me, for the Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

Autonomy Institute: "A new report calls for a ban on political donors being considered for public contracts after finding 373 companies made a total of over £60 billion following their donations."

29 firms donated £11m+ to the Tories & were then awarded contracts worth £2.3 billion from 2015-2024

Peer trying to derail UK smoking ban discussed bill with relative at tobacco firm Lord Strathcarron says he and an in-law ‘high up’ at British American Tobacco discussed bill, which he aims to weaken

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

‘Jail is inevitable’ for former Reform politician awaitin... Two other MEPs joined Nathan Gill on a trip paid for by pro-Russian interests – and 6 weeks later repeated his talking points in Parliament

Exclusive: Two of Nathan Gill's fellow Ukip/Brexit Party MEPs used the same pro-Russia talking points in European Parliament, after joining him on a paid-for trip to Kyiv

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Crypto donations: how to tackle the new dark money threat

The UK's first #cryptocurrency donation to a political party raises questions on traceability, foreign influence & regulation
@timpicton.bsky.social of @spotlightcorruption.org explores options - regulate or ban crypto?
Read the blog 👇
www.radixbigtent.org.uk/news-comment... #ElectionsBill

Politics should not apply cash-era laws to crypto donations The UK government’s elections bill risks importing analogue assumptions into a digital threat landscape

An excellent article in the @financialtimes.com this week from @cfs-rusi.bsky.social's Eliza Lockhart on the outdated approach to crypto-assets in UK politics.
📰✒️

ft.com/content/c01c...

#Crypto #Politics #Corruption

Great to see @russellscott1.bsky.social shortlisted for a British journalism award for his brilliant @bylinetimes.bsky.social investigations into the VIP lane PPE scandal pressgazette.co.uk/press-gazett...

Michael Gove Lobbied Government Officials to Hand Conservative Donor Multimillion Pound Covid Contract Private correspondence seen by Byline Times reveals that Ciga Healthcare's Brexit-supporting owner had pushed Gove to "take control" of the process

🔴Michael Gove Lobbied Government Officials to Hand Conservative Donor Multimillion Pound Covid Contract

Private correspondence seen by Byline Times reveals that Ciga Healthcare’s Brexit-supporting owner had pushed Gove to “take control” of the process

bylinetimes.com/2025/10/23/m...

The snail farmer of London, his mafia friends, and a £20m vendetta against the taxman Terry Ball runs elaborate mollusc-based tax avoidance schemes that are costing London councils millions of pounds. Yet when London Centric tracks him down, an even stranger story emerges.

I think this is the weirdest story I've ever reported. www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball...

FT Investigation: At least 30 individuals or companies that have collectively donated more than $116mn to Donald Trump’s causes have received benefits or advantages from White House moves.

Read more here: on.ft.com/497fook

Crypto donations: how to tackle the new dark money threat - Spotlight on Corruption The first-ever crypto donation to a UK political party has now been made, according to recent media reports. We don’t yet know the source or value of the

💥The first crypto donation to a UK political party has been made – but what should happen next?
@timpicton.bsky.social sets out what guidance the @electoralcommission.org.uk could issue right now, and takes a look at how the forthcoming #ElectionsBill could deal with potential future risks.

UK and US take joint action to disrupt major online fraud network Alongside the US Government, the UK has today sanctioned a network that operates illegal scam centres across Southeast Asia.

👏 Really welcome to see these coordinated UK-US sanctions aimed at taking down a crypto investment scam in South East Asia, targeting BVI companies which invested in UK property including a £12m mansion in North London, a £100m office building in the City of London, and 17 flats around London.

#NoStoneUnturned – Byline Times Shop #NoStoneUnturned Help Byline Times go where others dare to tread. We’re raising £20k to build a new special investigations team led by Nafeez Ahmed. Byline Times is asking for your support to advance ...

Help @bylinetimes.bsky.social step things up a level. We’re raising £20k to build a new special investigations team led by Nafeez Ahmed
subscribe.bylinetimes.com/nostoneuntur...

They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.

NEW: How a U.S. anti-abortion group has quietly positioned itself as a powerbroker between the Trump administration and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Latest investigation w Elizabeth Dias. 
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

Calls for transparency on political funding after first c... Electoral Commission notified of financial contribution, which is rumoured to have been handed to Reform UK

Exc: The Electoral Commission has been given early notice of the UK's first ever crypto donation

The has been "made, but not declared", to a party understood to be Reform

Reform spox said: "All donations above the reporting limit will be disclosed in the usual way"

share.google/VvtjBjEjEjRa...

The £1m man: Why did Boris Johnson take his donor to Ukraine? Exclusive: Leaked files offer a glimpse of the ex-prime minister’s relationship with Christopher Harborne As he boarded the night train to Ukraine, Boris Johnson had the usual entourage of aides and bodyguards – plus the man who had given him £1m. Less than a year had passed since Johnson accepted what is thought to be the largest donation ever to an individual MP. It was from Christopher Harborne, one of the UK’s biggest and most private political donors. Continue reading...

The £1m man: Why did Boris Johnson take his donor to Ukraine?