Subject To That Public Interest Test

If Keir Starmer resigned tomorrow, then would there still be a King’s Speech on Wednesday? If so, then would the new Prime Minister have written it from scratch overnight, like some of our university essays of old? We shall know that Starmer’s time was up when he insisted that he could remain Prime Minister, “and you can have whoever you like to lead your precious party.” In the final moments, Margaret Thatcher said that, and Tony Blair did not say “precious”. But each of them had been Prime Minister for 10 years, not two. Still, their three-figure majorities could not save them, just as Starmer’s will not save him.

Joe Morris has just resigned as PPS to Wes Streeting, calling on Starmer to resign. Jas Athwal, Streeting’s constituency neighbour and very close ally, has also made that call. It’s on. MPs of two years’ standing are being hailed as elder statespersons, just as every Labour MP who criticised Jeremy Corbyn was always called “senior”, even though they had rarely, if ever, been in Parliament, as he had, since 1983. But as a journalist as well as a very seasoned politician, Corbyn knew how the game was played. Starmer, on the other hand.

“Full national ownership of British Steel” is a welcome step but does not mean what most people would probably think that it meant, and that would be incompatible with reaccession to Margaret Thatcher’s Single Market. Revisiting Brexit would be madness. I was no supporter of the Coalition, but it was far more stable, and in its own terms got far more done, than any of its successors. Post-referendum Britain, in which we are still living, has frequently been compared to post-War France and Italy, but those enjoyed considerable economic growth even amid the constantly changing governments in the long shadow of a World War that had also been a civil war, with the victory of the Allies at both levels looking very different once the Cold War had started.

As to what a Streeting Premiership would look like, it is worth quoting Laura Hughes in full:

NHS England has granted external staff from companies including Palantir “unlimited access” to identifiable patient data while working on a part of its flagship data platform.

The change, first outlined in an internal briefing note seen by the FT, relates to the National Data Integration Tenant, described as a “safe haven for data” before it is “pseudonymised” and transferred to other systems.

The NDIT is an area within the Federated Data Platform, a tool that connects disparate NHS data into a single system, which Palantir won a £330mn contract in 2023 to build.

Under the plan, NHS England has agreed to create an “admin” role, which the briefing acknowledges “permits unlimited access to non-NHSE staff” to the NDIT and the identifiable patient information held within it.

As well as Palantir employees, this could include staff from consultancy firms who have been drafted in to work on the FDP.

The change marks a significant departure from the current practice, which requires any individual working with the NDIT to apply for clear data access for specific data sets.

The briefing document, written by a senior NHS data official in April, acknowledges that granting enhanced permissions could mean there is a “risk of loss of public confidence” when it comes to “safeguarding patient data and ensuring appropriate use and access to it”.

While all-round access was originally intended only for NHS England employees with security clearance, the briefing noted that external workers had requested the same permissions “as it is too inconvenient to apply for all of the necessary individual CDAs”.

A doctor in blue scrubs with a red stethoscope uses a tablet device, likely checking patient records.

It added: “This is not only about Palantir, hence we have referred to non-NHSE staff, but there is currently considerable public interest and concern about how much access to patient data Palantir/Palantir staff have.”

The note recommends that a cap be placed on the number of external admins with access to the NDIT, which should also be time-limited and regularly reviewed.

Officials confirmed that the recommendation in the briefing note had been accepted in recent weeks but said it would apply to only a small number of non-NHS staff.

Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Commons technology committee, said: “This somewhat cavalier attitude to data security demonstrated how this whole [FDP] project does not have security by design at its heart.

“The public will be rightfully concerned that data privacy is not the first concern.”

NHS England has committed to five “data promises”, which include transparency about who can access data and what they can see. Referencing the pledge, the briefing warned that “being sure exactly who is accessing what patient-identifiable data at any one time” is a top concern.

“The more people have unrestricted access, the less that aim can be met,” it added.

An NHS England spokesperson said: “The NHS has strict policies in place for managing access to patient data and carries out regular audits to ensure compliance — including monitoring the work of engineers helping to set up the central data collection platform that will track NHS performance and help improve care for patients.

“Anyone external requiring access must have government security clearance and be approved by a member of NHS England staff at director level or above.”

Palantir’s involvement in creating the FDP has increasingly become controversial because of its work in the US defence sector and immigration enforcement.

Its co-founder and chief executive, Alex Karp, has been an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, and some NHS staff have refused to work on the FDP due to ethical concerns about the company.

Supporters of the FDP have praised its ability to bring together operational data, such as waiting lists and operating theatre schedules, and improve patient outcomes.

A Palantir spokesperson said: “To the NHS, and all our customers, we are designated by law as a ‘data processor’, with our customers “data controllers”.

“That means that Palantir software can only be used to process data precisely in line with the instruction of the customer. Using the data for anything else would not only be illegal but technically impossible due to granular access controls overseen by the NHS.”

That is the Palantir of Jeffrey Epstein’s Peter Thiel, the Palantir that was a client of Epstein’s Peter Mandelson, the Palantir with which Mandelson and Starmer had off-the-books meetings in Washington while Mandelson, under whom Streeting had learned so much, was Ambassador there. Ofcom has been unleashed against GB News, ostensibly over Bev Turner’s interview with Donald Trump, but the Thiel connection to the coming regime, and indeed to the present one, means that it will be safe from anything more than performative attacks from Reform UK and its media, in the way that Nigel Farage’s undeclared and untaxed five million pounds from Christopher Harborne has not been allowed to bring him down, as would have happened to a politician who was not in the club.

Likewise, after Zack Polanski’s never having been a spokesman for the British Red Cross, never having been a full member of the National Council for Hypnotherapy, and never having worked for the nonexistent “justice assessment committee” of the Ministry of Justice, he turns out not to have paid Council Tax on his narrowboat despite having been registered to vote there, but no real blows are being landed. Nor will they be, since the Greens are the British party for which Noam Chomsky would vote, so they are part of the Epstein Class.

You are outside that only if, like Shehryar Kayani of the Workers Party, you could be put through four recounts before Birmingham City Council had no choice, at eight o’clock on the Monday evening, but to declare that you had indeed unseated the Leader, John Cotton. The count and the first two recounts had all shown Kayani six votes ahead, but seven more ballot papers turned up this morning. They must have disappeared again, because Kayani has beaten Satnam Tank of Reform by six votes after all, with Reform and the Workers Party taking the first four spots, so one seat each, and with Cotton in fifth place. Fifth. But there would have been none of this palaver if both seats in Glebe Farm and Tile Cross had turned turquoise.