Palantir’s Doorman
Where the Streeting has no shame
As Secretary of State for Health, instead of ploughing £330 million into improving patient care, cutting wait times, employing more staff and repairing NHS facilities, Wes Streeting decided to give that money to one of the most controversial evil corporations in the world: Palantir.
Palantir, you may be aware, has used its technology in its operations in Gaza, including military decision making, analysing targets and battle plan proposals. Independent reports indicate at least 17,400 children have been killed by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023. The firm’s co-founder, weird old Peter Thiel, is proud of the work his company has done for the IDF. It also worked with Trump’s gestapo outfit, ICE.
Thiel, a key Trump supporter, also believes the Antichrist will come in the form of someone like Greta Thunberg, not someone who is in the Epstein Files, like Thiel himself, or Musk or Trump. He has described Britain’s affection for the NHS as “Stockholm Syndrome”. He also thinks “welfare creates poverty”, which a bit rich from a billionaire who lives in the only country where medical bankruptcies thrive. There are around 530,000 annually in the US. A disgrace in the richest country in the world.
The contract that Streeting gave Palantir is to create a Federated Data Platform (FDP) to connect disparate NHS data systems. However many NHS Trusts do not want to implement it. People may decline to share their own information if someone as untrustworthy as Palantir can get their hands on it. Officially, the NHS will own the data and Palantir will not be able to use it for their own ends, but when the Good Law Project used an FOI claim to see the Palantir contract, 417 pages of its 586 were blacked out. Not by Palantir, but by the NHS. We’ve paid for it, but we cannot know what we have paid for. Given Palantir’s record in surveillance, policing, immigration enforcement, intelligence and military applications, who would trust them with any personal information?
Palantir’s CEO Dr Alex Carp said Palestinian “peace activists are war activists” who should be sent to North Korea for protesting genocide.
And now the man who has opened the door to Palantir wants to be Prime Minister.
Current PM, Keir Starmer is cooked because he’s loathed by all sides. The left hate him for supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the centre hate him because he hired Peter Mandelson against advice, and the right hate him because they are told to do so by the right-wing press and the BBC.
In private, Streeting is critical of Israel and believes they are committing war crimes, but in public he belongs to Labour Friends of Israel and has been part of a government that has helped arm Netanyahu’s violence against Palestinians.
In short, it’s hard to tell if he believes in anything at all. But getting into bed with Palantir – and getting us all into bed with these ethics-free psychopaths – must make his judgement questionable. Surely we can do better.
Image credits:
Streeting by Lauren Hurley using this license
Carp by Ben Dance used under this license
How restrained of you.
McSweeney,Burnham and Streeting is there a thread that links them to the Dark Lord🤔 and revenge of the Diplomat.