Palantir Doesn’t Need to Win an Election

Watson, Labour’s former deputy leader, was made a life peer in 2022. He now sits in the House of Lords as Lord Watson of Wyre Forest.

And now he has become a senior vice-president at Palantir.

He had already been advising the company since 2024. He is now taking leave from the House of Lords while working for it properly, as though temporarily stepping away removes the political relationships, institutional knowledge and establishment access accumulated across an entire career.

Of course, we are being told that this is about improving public services.

Perhaps Watson genuinely believes that. But we have heard his certainties before.

We have heard his certainties before

This is the same Tom Watson who became one of the loudest political figures behind allegations of a Westminster “VIP paedophile ring.” He described the claims made by Carl Beech—then publicly known as “Nick”—as credible and consistent. Beech claimed that senior establishment figures had been involved in rape, torture and murder.

The allegations were false.

Beech was eventually convicted and imprisoned for fabricating them, but not before homes had been raided, reputations had been destroyed and innocent men had been publicly placed beneath a cloud of suspicion.

Watson also applied political pressure over an allegation against former Conservative home secretary Leon Brittan. Brittan died without being told that prosecutors had decided there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Watson had described Brittan as being “as close to evil as any human being could get.” He later apologised for that language, while continuing to defend his wider campaigning.

That history matters—not because historic abuse should never have been investigated, and certainly not because powerful people should be protected. It matters because Watson possessed political authority, attached that authority to extraordinary allegations and displayed enormous confidence while doing it.

Now that same political authority is commercially valuable to Palantir.

Not merely another software company

Palantir is not Larry Ellison’s company, as I initially thought. Ellison is Oracle. Palantir belongs to the world of Peter Thiel and Alex Karp: American technology billionaires building systems that allow governments, intelligence agencies, police forces, militaries and large organisations to combine and analyse enormous quantities of data.

It is not simply another company selling office software.

Palantir has worked with the American security state, US immigration enforcement and the Israeli military. In Britain, it has secured major defence work and a £330 million contract connected to the NHS Federated Data Platform.

The controversy is therefore not imaginary. Doctors, trade unions, campaigners and MPs have questioned whether a company so closely associated with surveillance, immigration enforcement and warfare should be embedded within Britain’s health infrastructure.

There are serious questions about patient trust, foreign technological dependence and what happens when essential public systems become reliant upon a politically connected American corporation.

That does not, by itself, prove criminal corruption. But the more defensible description is hardly reassuring: Palantir is secretive, enormously powerful, politically connected and becoming deeply embedded within the machinery of the British state.

Peter Thiel and George Osborne

Osborne is not in the House of Lords. He does not need to be. He is a former Conservative chancellor and now chairs the British Museum—another influential establishment position obtained after leaving elected office.

Thiel was recently given a private viewing of the Bayeux Tapestry through the museum. Osborne admitted that he had expected the visit to remain private. Thiel had not donated to the institution. The access appears to have been granted simply because of who he is.

It is a small incident, but it illuminates the entire system.

On one side, Palantir recruits a former Labour deputy leader and member of the House of Lords while its NHS contract is under political pressure. On the other, its billionaire co-founder receives private treatment from a former Conservative chancellor occupying one of Britain’s most prestigious cultural positions.

That is how power operates in Britain. We are encouraged to imagine Labour and the Conservatives as two separate worlds locked in permanent opposition. Yet beyond the elections, slogans and theatrical Commons arguments, influential people circulate through the same narrow collection of corporations, consultancies, cultural institutions, boardrooms and private meetings.

The public gets party politics.

The powerful get access.

Every event gets a respectable explanation

Watson will presumably argue that his new position is a continuation of his public-service work. Palantir will say that its technology makes the NHS more efficient. Osborne may say that offering Thiel private access to the tapestry was merely hospitality.

Every individual event can be given a respectable explanation.

It is only when they are placed together that the pattern becomes obvious.

A former Labour deputy leader is elevated to the unelected House of Lords and then joins a company holding major government contracts. Its billionaire co-founder receives private treatment from a former Conservative chancellor. The company becomes more deeply integrated into the NHS, defence and the British state while the people deciding its future increasingly come from the same establishment world as those paid to represent it.

It is fucking disgusting—but it is also completely normal within the British political system.

This is not principally a story about Tom Watson accepting a new job. It is about political authority being converted into commercial value. The title changes from deputy leader to lord and then from lord to senior vice-president, but the access travels with him.