Tom Watson warns against ‘mob rule’ over Palantir government contracts

Tom Watson, former Labour deputy leader, has taken up a senior vice-presidency at Palantir and marked the occasion by warning against 'mob rule' in public procurement. The mob, in this telling, is anyone with a view about a company that sells analytics to governments, holds a £330m NHS software deal, and would much prefer the conversation stayed in a committee room. Not 'public debate', note. Not 'scrutiny'. Mob rule. One does admire the precision of the diagnosis, and the timing, which is impeccable in the way a fire alarm is impeccable during a fire.

Watson does concede that ministers could get themselves 'in a lot of trouble' over concerns about the government working with Palantir — the closest thing to a threat anyone has managed in some weeks. Trouble from whom, he doesn't say, though the earlier phrase does the heavy lifting: the mob, presumably, with their freedom of information requests and their inconvenient voting intentions. Meanwhile the sober alternative to all that rabble — the tender process — has already delivered the £330m NHS software deal. Oddly, nobody invoked mob rule when that particular paperwork went through.

The real craft is the reframing. A man who spent years in opposition, professionally adjacent to public pressure, has discovered that pressure is a defect in the system the instant it points at his employer's revenue. Palantir gets a former deputy Labour leader; Westminster gets a fresh vocabulary in which accountability is disorder, a signed contract is a fact of nature, and a voter with a question is a pitchfork. There will be a Select Committee, a thoughtful question, and an adjournment for recess; the £330m will still be there in the morning, only now with a former deputy leader attached to it.