Another former government minister has been hired by a controversial US AI company, this time Palantir, which has appointed Andy Burnham’s former ministerial colleague Tom Watson.
The Labour peer and former deputy leader will operate alongside Palantir’s UK and Europe chief executive, Louis Mosley, as the company attempts to fend off pressure on Burnham’s government to axe its £330m NHS contract. It is also fighting Sadiq Khan in court over the Labour London mayor’s block on a £50m contract to use its AI in Metropolitan police investigations. Palantir also wants to win more public sector work in the UK, where it already has an annual turnover of £427m.
The company was co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel and provides AI-powered software to the Israeli military and the White House’s ICE immigration crackdown, leading to a public and political backlash against its deepening involvement in British public services. Alex Karp, its chief executive, said: “This is just the latest chapter of Tom’s forty-year fight for better public services. We are fortunate to have him guide us as we help the British government to deliver for the British public.”
His job will be, in part, to “deepen the social and economic value its work creates through better British public services, jobs and skills”, Palantir said.
Since stepping down from parliament in 2019, Watson has been an adviser to the gambling and music industries and, since 2024, he has been a part-time adviser to Palantir, including accompanying Mosley at Labour party conferences. He was a defence minister and a minister for digital engagement in Gordon Brown’s government. Palantir has a £240m contract with the Ministry of Defence.
The move is just the latest example of a revolving door between British politics and big tech. After the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg spent nearly seven years earning millions working for Mark Zuckerberg at Meta, the former prime minister Rishi Sunak last year took jobs with Anthropic and Microsoft and the former chancellor George Osborne started working for OpenAI. Keir Starmer’s AI adviser, Matt Clifford, also joined Anthropic this month. He tried to retain the chair of a government science and tech research body, but quit under pressure over conflicts of interest.
“The revolving door is proving very fruitful for big tech,” said Tom Brake, the chief executive of Unlock Democracy, a not-for-profit campaign group. “The only surefire way to stop tech companies benefiting from privileged information acquired by ministers or senior civil servants is to introduce an enforceable five-year ban on taking up industry posts.”
Watson said he was “terrifically excited” by the new role as Palantir’s senior vice-president and highlighted two of the contracts that are in dispute when he said he wanted to help Palantir speed up NHS diagnosis, treatment and discharge from hospitals and enable “our police to crack crimes and root out corruption”. Palantir said Watson had taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords and had relinquished his parliamentary pass while working for Palantir in London.
