Transcription
Digital ID will make our interactions with each other and with the state faster, cheaper, and more reliable.
Over the past few months, you have probably seen the claim bouncing around the internet that Tony Blair's son is getting the contract for the UK's new digital ID. His company Multiverse is getting a hundred billion pounds. The corruption is right there. Outrageous, right? Blatant nepotism. A former prime minister's kid cashing in on daddy's connections. There's just one small teeny-tiny [music] problem with that. It's completely bollocks. You and Blair's company, Multiverse, is an apprenticeship training company. They don't build software. They've never built software. The BBC had to issue a formal apology after Have I Got News for You repeated this claim. Full Fact debunked it. The government denied it. Multiverse themselves said, and I am quoting here, "We are not an app provider even for a hundred billion pounds."
So that's the end of the story then, right? No Blair family corruption here. Move along. Except while everyone was busy sharing the wrong scandal, the actual scandal was happening right in front of us. And somehow it's even worse. But hey, I'm Andy Roberts and this is The Fine, where we read the corporate fine print so that you don't have to die from it. Today, we're looking at a story about a former prime minister, the second richest man in the world, a quarter of a billion pounds in donations, and a surveillance system that will track every single person in Britain. And the beautiful thing, none of it's hidden. It is all right there, right there in the fine print. They're not even trying to hide it anymore.
Let's start with a quote. Labour Party Conference 1995. Tony Blair, young, fresh-faced, not yet prime minister, takes the stage and says this: "Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, as the Tory Right demands, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local community." [applause] What a hero. Standing up against Big Brother, defending civil liberties, calling out government overreach. Well, that was in 1995.
By 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair had pushed through the Identity Cards Act, a biometric ID card scheme backed by a national database that would track every use of your ID. "If we want to tackle illegal migration, crime and identity fraud, then using the new biometric technology to have ID cards is an important part of doing so." Cost estimate upwards of £19 billion, according to the London School of Economics. The scheme was sold as the answer to terrorism, then to illegal immigration, then benefit fraud, then identity theft. "It would be madness not to proceed to use that new technology to produce such a handy, safe, secure card." >> Basically, pick your boogeyman and ID cards are the fix.
The scheme was an [music] absolute disaster. By the time it was scrapped in 2010, it had burned through £4.6 billion of taxpayer money. >> It cost the taxpayer £5 billion. Now, within the first 100 days of the coalition, it's being scrapped and produced 15,000 voluntary cards. That is over. Carry the one. Yeah. £300,000 per card. You could have bought everyone a secondhand Ferrari for less.
But here's the thing about Tony Blair. The man doesn't give up. He's like the Terminator except instead of >> "I'll be back," >> it's all "I'll be tracking your biometric data." Now, if you're already feeling your blood pressure rising, you might want to hit that subscribe button and the notification bell because we are just getting started. We cover stories on the fine print every week that are exactly like this. Corporate greed, corruption, and the cozy relationships that somehow always seem to cost you money. Anyway, right back to the story because this is where it gets properly interesting. [snorts]
After leaving office, Tony Blair set up something called the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Sounds all very noble and all that, very humanitarian. The institute now has over 900 staff, works in 45 countries, and had a turnover of £145 million quid in 2023. That makes it bigger than basically every other think tank in the UK combined. Well, where does all that money come from? Well, a lot of it comes from one man. Introducing Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle. Current net worth approximately $290 billion. That makes him the second richest person on the planet. Larry has donated or pledged £257 million to the Tony Blair Institute. Yeah, give that one a moment to sink in. £257 million quid to a think tank run by a former prime [music] minister. From the chairman of one of the world's largest tech companies.
Now, Larry and Tony aren't just professional acquaintances. They're mates. Best mates apparently. They holiday together on Larry's superyacht in the Mediterranean. Well, isn't that sweet? And what does Larry's company Oracle do exactly? Well, they're a technology giant that specializes in databases, enterprise software, [music] and government contracts. In fact, Oracle already has £700 million worth of contracts with the UK government. They've got deals with the Home Office, the Department for Works and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice, and DERA. [music] This year alone, Oracle has earned £100 million in revenue from the NHS. [music]
So to recap, the world's second richest man who runs a database company with massive existing UK government contracts has given a quarter of a billion quid to the institute run by the former prime minister who's been obsessed with national ID databases for decades. Sure, that's just a coincidence.
Now, here's where the fine print gets really interesting. Documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Law revealed that in September 12th, 2024, Tony Blair had a private meeting with Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary. During this meeting, according to official civil service minutes, Blair noted the work of the Ellison Institute, and recommended that the Secretary of State sought a briefing on their work. The Ellison Institute, [music] as in Larry Ellison, as in the Oracle chairman, the man who's given Blair's organization £257 million pounds. [music]
So that's a former prime minister in a private meeting with a sitting cabinet minister recommending that the government work a little bit more closely with his billionaire benefactor's organization. And what happened after this meeting? Staff from Oracle and the Ellison Institute met with ministers and senior government officials 29 times in nine months. 29 [music] times. Peter Kyle met with Oracle bosses. Health Secretary Wes Streeting met with Oracle bosses. Chancellor Rachel Reeves met with Oracle bosses. Science Minister Lord Valance met with the Ellison Institute seven times, including one meeting to discuss EIT plans for expansion and alignment with government priorities. Alignment with government's priorities. How thoughtful of them. One tech expert, Rachel Cod, put it brilliantly when she suggested we should stop calling the Tony Blair Institute a think tank and start calling it what it really is, an Oracle dealership.
But here's the bit that should really make you uncomfortable. Larry Ellison isn't just interested in selling databases. He has a vision for the future. >> Studio, you on with me? This is Chopper [music] 5 studio. You copy? >> So way back after 9/11, Ellison publicly offered to pay for the US government to create a national ID card with our photograph [music] and thumbprint digitized. Not a contract bid. He offered to fund it himself. [music] And more recently, he's spoken about using AI and constant surveillance to create a society where, and this is a direct quote, [music] "citizens will be on their best behavior." Citizens will be on their best behavior. [music] Not customers, not users. Citizens.
This is the vision of the man who's given £257 million pounds to Tony Blair's Institute. This is the company that's meeting with government ministers 29 times in 9 months. This is the organization that Blair personally recommended to the Business Secretary. And the NHS data. Ellison wants that too. At the Dubai World Government Summit in February 2025, Ellison told Blair directly, "The NHS in the UK has an incredible amount of population data." He called it fragmented, which in tech billionaire speak means not yet accessible to us. Two weeks later, Blair's Institute published a report calling UK data infrastructure fragmented and unfit for purpose. Two weeks, same talking points, just a coincidence, I'm sure.
So, where are we now? On September 24th, 2025, the Tony Blair Institute published a report calling for digital ID cards. 48 hours later, 48 hours, [music] Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK would be getting mandatory digital IDs. >> "I am announcing this government will make a new, free-of-charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work." In Starmer's own words, "You will not be able to work in the UK if you do not have a digital ID." >> "You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have a digital ID." >> "It's as simple as that."
But it is technically voluntary. The estimated cost £1.8 billion to start. That's about £50 from every single taxpayer for one card for a scheme that, remember, nobody voted for, wasn't in the Labour manifesto, and that the government initially said they wouldn't do. 63% of the British public don't trust the government to keep their digital ID data secure. Nearly 3 million people have signed a petition against mandatory digital ID, one of the largest petitions in parliamentary history. And the contract to build this system, not formally awarded yet, but experts say Oracle is in pole position. Oracle, Larry Ellison's company, the company that's given a quarter of a billion pounds to Tony Blair's Institute. The company whose staff met with ministers [music] 29 times in 9 months. The company whose chairman wants to create a surveillance society where citizens will be on their best behavior. Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Holland-Drake called out directly: "Despite Starmer's promises of a crackdown on cronyism, these revelations show it runs right to the very top of this rotten Labour government."
And when Blair's people were asked about all this, they said he was simply discussing the investment Larry Ellison is making in science and technology in the UK. I'm sure he was.
So, let's recap what we've learned today. In [music] 1995, Tony Blair said spending money on ID cards was a waste. In 2006, he spent $4.6 billion of your money on ID cards that didn't work. In 2025, his think tank, funded by the world's second richest man, who runs a database company, [music] publishes a report calling for digital IDs. 48 hours later, the government announces mandatory voluntary digital IDs. The company in pole position to get the contract, [music] the one run by the billionaire funding Blair's Institute, and everyone was too busy sharing the wrong scandal to [music] notice.
The viral posts about you and Blair and Multiverse, completely false. But they served a purpose, didn't they? They made the whole thing seem like fake news, conspiracy theories. Nothing to see here. Meanwhile, the actual corruption documented in government minutes, freedom of information requests, and company [music] accounts sits there, right there in plain sight. A former prime minister, a tech billionaire, £257 million in donations, 29 ministerial meetings, and a surveillance system that will track every working person in Britain. That's not a conspiracy. That's just the fine print. I'm Andy Roberts. Thanks for reading the fine print with us and I'll see you in the next one.