Digital Twins, Real Politics: Leon Emirali

What if you could stress‑test a policy pitch with a faithful simulation of the minister you’re meeting tomorrow? We sit down with Leon Emirali—startup founder turned Westminster aide—who’s now building Nostrada AI, a platform that creates high‑fidelity digital twins of politicians trained only on their own public words. From late‑night Brexit votes to the first days of COVID, Leon’s time inside government shapes a clear-eyed view of how information moves, where decisions bottleneck, and why faster, more grounded research can improve the conversation between industry and state.

We dig into the mechanics: how per‑politician models reduce cross‑bias, why provenance and citations matter, and where to draw bright lines between public records and private data. We also probe the big question lighting up headlines—AI “ministers” and democratic legitimacy. Lebanon and Albania are experimenting; should the UK or US follow? Leon argues for AI as a tool, not a ruler, and lays out practical guardrails that keep expertise accessible while preventing false authority and misuse.

Beyond politics, we explore open data as a strategic asset for smarter public services—think anonymized NHS patterns, transport peaks, and service planning informed by real signals. And for builders, Leon shares hard-won advice: say yes, ship sooner than feels safe, and let feedback compound. If you care about policy, lobbying, AI ethics, or the future of democratic engagement, this conversation offers concrete insights, skeptical optimism, and a working blueprint for responsible adoption.

If this sparked ideas, follow the show, share with a friend who loves tech and policy, and leave a quick review so more curious people can find us.

Links:

https://www.leonemirali.com/

https://www.nostrada.ai/

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening, Season CTA, Guest Teaser
• 1:28 Leon’s Career: Startups to Westminster
• 5:22 Inside Brexit and COVID-Era Government
• 10:16 The Spark Behind Nostrada AI
• 14:10 Global AI Ministers and Democracy
• 18:20 Bias, Training Data, and Digital Twins
• 22:20 Ethics, Access, and Enterprise Use

Transcript

Stephen: 0:02

And welcome to another episode of The Incongruent. This is Stephen King, and joining me today is Rad Rad Radhika.

Radhika: 0:10

Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in.

Stephen: 0:13

And if you are enjoying this new season, please do like, subscribe, follow, and give us some thumbs up or some comments wherever it's necessary. It really does appreciate it. Radhika, we had an amazing conversation today. Who did we speak to?

Radhika: 0:28

So we spoke to Leon Emirali and we dived into his diverse career across social media marketing, politics, and now AI. And he told us about this cutting-edge uh political AI tool that he's been working on in Australia. So tune in if you want to listen more.

Stephen: 0:46

Yeah, we're going into synthesizing uh data based on public servants' published comments. So we are creating digital twins here. Oh no, we are, but uh Leon is making digital twins of different government ministers, and you'll be able to have a conversation uh with them using a chatbot, which is really quite cool. Uh we go into all the ethics of it, we go into potential uses uh and where this might go. So it was an absolutely amazing job, right?

Radhika: 1:15

Yes, it really was.

Stephen: 1:17

And Radhika did a great job. So if everybody's ready, here we go.

Radhika: 1:26

Welcome to another episode of The Incongruent. Today we have with us Leon Emirali. In 2009, while still at university, Leon started one of the UK's earliest social media marketing companies. He then went on to co-found Crest, the award-winning digital agency. After leading the business to year-on-year growth, his shareholding was acquired in 2019. After successful exits from two startups, he was appointed as a chief aide to a member of parliament and UK government cabinet minister. Following an eventful period in Westminster, which spanned the UK's withdrawal from the EU and onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Leon returned to the private sector advising executives who have led global businesses, including Aston Martin, EasyJet, and Virgin Galactic. Today, outside of running his own ventures, he works as an advisor to advertising agency MNC Satchie and political consultancy, PLMR. Leon often appears as an expert commentator in the media and is a regular on BBC News and Sky News. Leon has written columns for the Times, Telegraph, City AM, and others. His current vendor, Nostrada AI, builds high fidelity AI simulations of global political actors, enabling corporate diplomatic and defense applications and forecasting future policy testing strategies, generating communications material, and preparing effectively for real world engagement. Welcome to the podcast, Leon.

Leon: 2:55

Thank you very much for having me.

Radhika: 2:58

So let's get into it. So the first question that we'd like to ask you presently it's possible you have the distinction of being our youngest guest on this season of The Incongruent. Could you therefore share some of the many highlights of your relatively young career, from your startup entrepreneur crest to your seat of power during the COVID-19 Brexit and back again to Nostrada?

Leon: 3:22

Great. Well, it's not it's not often I get called young these days, but I will I will take it at any given opportunity. So thank you. Um yeah, no, I've I've been I've been I've had a very varied career really, as you as you point out, Radhika. So um I I I started really thinking about business at university. Um I did a uh exchange trip to China, um, so from Coventry University where I studied, and I I spent sort of six, six, seven months in China. And uh while I was there, sort of had the idea about creating a social media marketing company. And this was this was back in the day when social media was was very fresh indeed. No one really understood it uh in the way that we do now. And I think being being a young person back then, when I was really young, was a massive advantage because businesses sort of knew they had to do social media, didn't really know how. Here's a young kid with a laptop, let's let's take a punt on him. And it sort of grew, it grew a bit from there. Um, so that was the first venture, and and that was that was brilliant as a university student, and that was sort of the beginnings of of Crest, which was an agency that I founded um or like I co-founded um with uh with a former colleague, and um we we were again just sort of two two young people trying our best to get clients in the digital marketing space, um, did a really good job of that, and um my shareholding was acquired after a few years of of really hard work of building the business, employing people, creating uh revenue, um, and uh was sort of thinking of what to do next. And out of the blue, got a call from a a friend of mine who who knew a cabinet minister, um, and uh and they said, Do you want to come and work in uh in parliament in Westminster? And I thought, um, yes, I do, um, because those opportunities don't come around that often. And uh yeah, it was an incredible opportunity just to sort of be in and around those incredible buildings, um, you know, sort of sitting in the back of a jaguar and pulling up to Downing Street was one of those sort of pinch me moments, but it was it was a real sort of opportunity to see how the world really works, and it was an incredible time. We had Brexit, we had COVID, we had a 2019 general election, it was all sort of happening at once. Um, so even though I only did that job for a short period, um it spanned a lot, so I could have been there for a long, long time, it felt like anyway. Um, and then went back into the private sector, doing some advisory consultancy. But as you say, Radhika, the exciting thing I'm working on now is Nostrada AI, which is um really sort of taking a combination of my work in politics uh alongside my work in sort of the digital communication space, putting that all together, and we've built a platform that ultimately um creates digital twins of members of parliament um or any politician uh really um and it enables businesses, organizations, governments to gain political insights from the the data repository that we process as part of the system?

Radhika: 6:15

Okay, it sounds like you've had like a really interesting, really dynamic career so far, and from what I can understand, it's like you're really good at understanding of the potential and the opportunities that come your way, and really good at grasping them. Uh, definitely something our listeners can take away. Um, our next question is what was it about your education or family upbringing that inspired you to become an entrepreneur at such an early age?

Leon: 6:40

Yeah, it's a good question. I think my my dad ran a business. Um he was a sign maker and he was he was self-employed, and um, you know, I saw as a young kid, you know, I saw my dad um putting in the hours, putting in the graft, um working for himself, and that's all I'd ever known, really. He did have jobs prior to working on his own, but I didn't really see them because I was I was either a baby or or before I was born. So my whole time knowing my dad's working life was him being a business founder. He wouldn't call himself an entrepreneur, but um, but that's what he was what he was, uh, and he was self-employed, and um, so I saw that, and I think that set the blueprint really. Always had an interest in business for that reason, and I think that was the inspiration to want to do something on my own accord. Um, but you know, having said that, I've had jobs as well where I've been employed, um, huge valuable experience. It's always good to make make your mistakes on someone else's time and payroll um so that you don't make them on in your in your own ventures. Um there's a lot of learning to be done as an employee. Uh, I'm not knocking that, but um, but for me, it was always wanting to start my own thing, do my own thing, you know, create my own path. And I think that comes from seeing my dad do that, really. So I'd say that's that's where it came from.

Radhika: 7:57

That's uh brilliant, Leon. Um, and so the next question is you attained quite a senior position counselling a prominent minister in the post-referendum British Parliament. What was that like?

Leon: 8:08

Yeah, it was incredible. Um I've as well as business being an interest, I've always had an interest in politics. And uh, you know, the opportunity to work for a government minister is quite rare. Um it was it was in the it was in the Brexit department initially, uh, which was interesting because I I voted to remain. Um but uh you either do this job or you don't do this job, so I sort of had to had to had to make the best of it. Um but it was an amazing experience and incredibly humbling um to be there as it as a fairly young young person, sort of in my early 30s, I think, at the time. Um, but that's the way Westminster operates, actually. I I certainly wasn't the youngest um aide and advisor. There were there were people younger than me. Um so I think that's just the way that it the way that it works. And you need to be, you need to be energetic. Um, there's not much time for sort of family life or or anything like that. Um and I think it does suit young people as as their kind of means of being able to move on, and maybe a lot of them will want to become MPs themselves, a lot of them will want to stand for office themselves. Um, but uh for me it was just about getting that experience in in Westminster. Um, and as I say, it was it was a pretty historic time, so we saw a lot. Um, and uh I think in British politics at that time, and people probably probably don't remember it, but it was it was you know parliament was on TV every night, um, Brexit votes, and then and then as soon as that was done, it looked like that was done. The COVID happened literally on the day we left the European Union, we got the first case of COVID. Um, so it was bouncing from one one sort of crisis to the next, really. Um so it was a it was a real learning curve, and um so two departments, my minister worked in department for exiting the European Union, and then he was reshuffled to the Treasury. Um so again, that was a good experience to to see another another department up close um and just working in Westminster, being in in the chamber, being in those buildings, it does sort of bestow on you a sense of um sense of history, really. So it was it was an amazing experience that I'm uh very grateful for.

Stephen: 10:12

Brilliant. So they're moving on now to Nostrada, which brings everything all together. Uh this fantastic digital twinning, synthesized data, machine learned. Tell us a little bit about what Nostrada is and why it makes it so exciting.

Leon: 10:29

Sure. So the the idea actually came um back in 2018 when I was when I was working at Crest, um, the digital marketing agency that I co-founded, um, I was doing a little bit of advisory to um to number 10 to to Downing Street when Theresa May was Prime Minister. And we were looking at how do we win the next battleground? Because I think there was a sense that the Conservative Party at that time you know hadn't mastered social media and they'd sort of been been losing that battle to the Labour Party. Um, so how do we then sort of get an advantage for the next battleground? And I looked at what was coming next in 2018 and thought, well, it is AI, it is it's actually voice. I thought voice was going to be a big, a big moment, and it has been with sort of things like Alexa and and Siri. Um, so I advised number 10 at that point they should create a Theresa May uh uh persona that you can talk to your Alexa device and say, Hey Prime Minister, what are you what are your priorities for today? What are you doing for today? And she would tell you what she's up to that day. And uh and I sort of presented that idea and I got laughed out the room, if I'm honest with you, at that point it was almost like that that that that would never happen. Um uh both for technological reasons and political reasons, it was it was sort of ridiculed a little bit, and there are a couple of media articles about it ridiculed ridiculing it. Um but that to me set the seed that you can create these personas of politicians, and the reasons why you can do that is because they create so much data. So whether that is speeches they're giving in parliament, whether it is social media tweets, whether it is you know media interviews, whatever it might be, they are constantly generating this data. And then when sort of the the LLM uh revolution took off in recent years, it just seemed to me that that was a natural marriage between what we've got with with the data that politicians produce, which crucially are in is in open source, is it it's public data because it's politicians producing it. Um the world owns that, it isn't anyone's anyone's uh property. So I thought, well, that makes sense that we put that into an LM model, into a into a machine learning model, and make that work as a as an insights um engine for for for politics, and and that's where we're at.

Stephen: 12:40

That's great. I mean, we'll we'll drill down a little bit into these um into the creative commons that uh many of the ministerial documents are under, and I'm sure that's going to change as soon as they see what we could potentially do with this kind of thing. But we've seen uh Albania was an exciting thing. So we've had Diela. Um Lebanon had an uh effectively one of the newspapers in Lebanon uh created a AI minister to help advise its own government. Um what's your opinion on those developments? And is is that somehow similar to what you've developed, or is is is that how do you think about those things?

Leon: 13:18

Yeah, I I think they're really interesting developments. I think they are really interesting. I think we're a long way off of doing that in uh in the UK or the US at any point soon. But it's great to see other nations exploring it. Um, you know, the difficulty is no one voted for that AI. Um, and there's therefore a question about the democratic deficit, is if you if you let AI make decisions for the country, uh, I think there is there is a question to be asked. Um, but I can envisage a time in the future where actually AI is on the ballot, where the option is do you want this guy, do you want this woman, or do you want this robot to be making these decisions for you? And uh, you know, if the if the AI model can prove that it makes good decisions, then why wouldn't the public want to want to put their faith in them? Um but we're not there yet. So I think we're a little way off. Uh Albania and Lebanon and those countries are definitely um pioneers on that front. Um, but I think there is a question to be asked about whether that is democratically the right thing to do or not. Uh I've got I've got some uh some reservations about it.

Stephen: 14:23

Uh in my hometown of Hartlepool, uh they voted uh the football mascot mayor twice. Uh Hangus the Monkey as a protest uh vote. So I I can definitely see if AI comes up onto the uh ballot point, there will be a lot of people who will say, uh, let's just stuff everybody and we're support for this, um, which is which is really quite interesting. Um but they just the some of the complaints about the Albanian government was all about who trains this AI and where does the data come from? And we had a discussion a week or so ago uh with a lady named Monica Marquez who was talking about the the inherent biases and we cannot avoid biases. So even in your own materials, you how do you um avoid there being a little Leon in all of these different ministers, if that makes sense?

Leon: 15:20

Yeah, there's a really important question that that sort of was was a real consideration creating this model, because um, you know, I think everyone has a bias to some degree, uh, whether they like to admit it or not, naturally. Um, but what we've done with Nostrada is we have trained each of the individual models, so the 650 MPs, we've trained each of those models only on the data that that MP has generated. So if you spoke to the Nigel Farage digital twin, you would get some quite right-wing views. If you spoke to the Jeremy Corbyn uh digital twin, you would get some very left-wing views. And I think that's the beauty of this model is that it reflects only what the politician um has inputted and it synthesizes that data. So obviously there are there is some system prompting that goes over the top of that. Um, but but we are very strict on saying that you should you should accurately, as best as you can, reflect what has been said previously by these politicians to make your to make your case. So it's not like a j an off-the-shelf LLM where you might chat to you chat to chat GPT or Gemini or whatever, and you might sense a bit of political bias because they're they're coming at things through one lens. This comes at things through 650 different lenses, um, each of what that MP's own ideology is. So we so we we try to reflect that, and I think we we've done a pretty good job of that um by sort of testing those those two extremes in parliament, who are your right-wing MPs, who are your left-wing MPs, um, and you do get very different answers from each of them, as you would expect, because that's the data that it's been trained on.

Radhika: 16:51

So um on the Nostrada website, you identify the three main users as chatting with AI simulations of politicians, predicting their future actions, and generating bespoke communication material. Uh, this is an ethical mind feel on so many levels. So, what was it that inspired you to tackle such a challenge?

Leon: 17:11

Yeah, I mean to be honest, I I think that AI ethics is something that is obviously a hot topic right now, um, and and rightly so, because it's a new technology that we are getting to grips with in many ways. Um and with this, you know, we are we are aiming this at quite sophisticated enterprise users. So these are people who work in government relations, they might be lobbyists, uh, they might be a government, they might be civil servants who who have used the platform. Um, you know, that they understand politics and they understand government quite well. Um, so I felt more comfortable about providing them with these tools as a means of being able to do their job better and quicker. Um, whereas I would feel less comfortable if this fell into the hands of you know your average sort of Tom Dick and Harry voter who who maybe aren't as politically sophisticated, who would perhaps ask the chatbot a question and take it as read that that is the exact view of the minister or whatever it might be, despite all the disclaimers that we have put on the website, and you know, it's quite clear that it's it's not their views, it's a digital simulation of their views. Um, so I I I wouldn't be comfortable with necessarily putting it into the hands of the public, but in this sense, it is enterprise users who understand politics, who get politics, um, and they're doing this stuff anyway. I mean, it's basically a a layer of research, advanced research, so that that that would take them many hours to do manually. We're we're making we're allowing them to do it a lot quicker and a lot better um through the way in which that we've packaged this. So um, so that that was my thought process behind the ethics of it. Um obviously the ethics around the the data, so that was a consideration, and and the great news that we we've already touched on is that the great news for us is that the data is in common common uh use, so anyone can sort of access that data and and and use it. It's not the MP's intellectual property. That's what you get for being a public servant, I guess. Um we don't use any of their private data, so even if we know, I don't know, let's say I'm friends with one of the MPs on Facebook behind behind a um you know a private account, we wouldn't input that data onto the platform. It is only data that is already in the public domain that we are that we are synthesizing. Um so there were a lot of questions about ethics, big consideration for us, but we we've got to a point where we're quite happy with with with what we're able to produce, and we think is actually you know do it doing quite good for the world and being able to enable businesses to better understand how policy is made, how they can influence policy in a positive way. Um and uh and and and that seems to be working quite well for us.

Radhika: 19:46

Yeah, so you touched on this a little bit already, and there are some conflicting um points on whether putting this information into the hands of corporate elite groups and lobbyists and possibly consumers is a democratic service or apparel. So what is your perspective on that?

Leon: 20:03

Yeah, look, look, lobbyists get a bad rap, um, and I get that because that that that's where I started my career. Um, but I think if you if you look beyond uh the headlines, and you know, it isn't sort of brown paper envelopes and and grubby deals, it's actually educating. It's about it's about educating MPs and ministers who by and large tend to be generalists, and very few of them are specialists in a certain topic area. So if you're the minister in charge of health policy, let's say, um, wouldn't it make sense that you are speaking to a company in health who are experts on, you know, whatever it might be, a certain pharmaceutical or whatever? Um, wouldn't it make sense you speak to them, you get to understand what they're trying to do, so you can make policy um in the most informed way as possible. And that's what this is, effectively. It's giving companies a better way of engaging with parliamentarians who who aren't specialists. Um so we're trying our very best to enable that process to make people feel comfortable in the policies that they are delivering. Um, and uh and that's what we're doing. You know, yes, there is a you have to pay for this, you have to you have to um you have to make money to use this. Um I understand that, but it isn't necessarily a critical function. We aren't saying that you can't engage with your MP in the normal way as as a as a voter, as a normal punter, we're just providing this as an enterprise tool to help businesses um engage more effectively, and I think that's better for everyone.

Stephen: 21:30

Moving towards the end here, I mean we've we've had a few of our guests talking about this public uh data, data that is already in the public domain and which is very rich. Um given that you are already in this field, uh have you knocked heads with other people who are uh monetizing other data points? Um what or or do you think that there are other pots of data gold out there that we that we could be looking at if we wanted to accept our own?

Leon: 22:01

Yeah, it's a it's a that is a massive question because I think that's going to underpin a lot of what happens in AI in the next few years. And certainly in the UK, there's legisl legislation going through Parliament right now around what do we do with with AI. Is it a de uh what is it so what do we do with content and AI training? I think the question at the moment is do we make it a default um that that anything that's put out there AI can be trained on. Um, you know, and I think that that's come under a lot of scrutiny from musicians and content creators, obviously, because they want to they want to be paid for what they create, and I think that's a fair point. Um, but no, I think there is a lot of of of rich open data, as you say, Steve. Um I I I haven't knocked heads with anyone doing anything similar, to be honest. I think because it's quite early in the in the process here. Not many people are are sort of you know in this space necessarily. Um but I do think that there are opportunities for us to look at what what's available publicly and how can we how can we synthesize that. I think the government in particular should be looking at it um in terms of what data they have access to. So for example, NHS records, a huge amount of data the government owns. If the government can use that, use AI to properly understand that data, to to to to better understand how I don't know what time of day most people call the GP surgery or what most what what illnesses peak at what point in the year. If they can use that to plan public services, I think there is huge opportunity there. Um, but it's about having the tool set, having the skill set within government to make sure that that can actually happen.

Stephen: 23:33

Good. I've got one last question because I know you've got a hard finish in a moment. If you went back to your university days, is there any advice you would offer to your younger self?

Leon: 23:43

Yeah, I I think um just get out there and meet as many people as you can. Say yes to as many things that you can. Um if you've got an idea for something, just go and do it. Don't worry about it being perfect. Put something out there in the world that isn't necessarily perfect and work on it as you go. Um, I think the biggest restriction, certainly I felt it as a student, was that you know, oh, I didn't really know how to make that happen. Or or or it just seemed as if that it wasn't as simple as it was, it was too complicated. Just start working on stuff and put it out there, and you will learn as you go and take every opportunity that that comes your way, I think is the advice I'd give I'd give younger self. And don't use so much hair gel, otherwise you end up with not much hair on your head.

Radhika: 24:27

Yeah, so we had another interesting episode on AI and use of AI in politics. And uh thank you so much, Leon, for being on our podcast and giving us all your interesting insights, and your advice to your younger self will also be very useful to our younger listeners. Um, so join in for our next episode and thank you for listening.

Leon: 24:53

Thanks for having me.