EPISODE 64: Digital Gangsters with Ian Lucas

DESCRIPTION: Radicalized: Truth Survives, an investigative podcast on disinformation and radicalization with Heidi Cuda, Jim Stewartson, High Fidelity, and Sean Conner. Special Guest: Ian Lucas

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Ian's Bio:

I write with the insight of a practising politician, involved in political campaigning since the 1980s and elected five times as a Member of the UK Parliament from 2001. I stood down from Parliament in 2019.

As a Labour Member of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (2015 to 2019), I was active in pursuing the Committee’s world-leading Inquiry into “Fake News and Disinformation” producing two widely praised reports on the issue in 2018 and 2019.

As an experienced Oxford law graduate and qualified advocate, I cross-examined witnesses in the Inquiry, including Alexander Nix, Brittany Kaiser, Arron Banks, Facebook Chief Technology Officer, Mike Schoepfner and regulators and Ministers.

As a member of the inaugural International Grand Committee, I questioned world authorities on the issues such as Professor Shoshana Zuboff and Roger McNamee and Facebook, Twitter and Google senior executives.

My questioning has formed part of numerous, news reports on the subject and I was included in the Academy Award nominated documentary on data “The Great Hack”.

I was previously Business and Regulatory Reform Minister, appointed by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Peter Mandelson’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, with direct responsibility for Government regulation, seeing regulatory regimes from a Government perspective.

I attended EU Council Meetings on behalf of the UK Government, particularly relating to regulation of manufacturing industry.

I was also appointed a Government Whip by Gordon Brown, with responsibility for Justice and Cabinet Office matters, gaining experience of the operation of the UK Government during the world financial crisis in 2008.

I was also in the Government Whip’s Office, helping to manage Parliament, during the UK Parliament “expenses” crisis which led to a crisis in confidence in MPs and the political class.

In Opposition, I was appointed spokesman for the Labour Party on the Middle East qnd Africa and travelled extensively, gaining experience of politics in those geographical areas.

Prior to my political career, I ran my own law firm and represented Trevor Rees-Jones, the sole survivor of the crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales from 1997, gaining an intense and unique perspective of a global, news event, its impact and I worked as a member of a team to produce the New York Times’ best-seller “The Bodyguard’s Story”, recording events during that period.

I have long experience of the operation of politics and economics, particularly regulation, and the way in which it interacts with the private sector.x