The Nerve: Carole Cadwalldr. Palantir Investigation.

Good evening!

Carole here, excited to bring you a fresh instalment of our ongoing Palantir investigation. We’ve now published 12 articles on everyone’s favourite spytech firm, including one from back in January when we revealed that it now had £670m worth of contracts in the UK. That figure – and the foundational work that underpins it – has been cited across multiple news outlets and has played a fundamental role in understanding Peter Thiel’s firm and its relationship to the British state. And it’s a moment to reflect on the fact that it simply wouldn’t have been done if we didn’t have our readers’ support.

Exactly a year ago, we launched the Nerve in an excited, exhausted heap up at the Labour party conference in Liverpool. And it feels pretty miraculous that not only are we still here, we’ve managed to hire journalists, break stories, hold 22 events around the country and do the kind of vital public interest journalism we believe Britain needs more of (here’s a piece all about our first year in this week’s Press Gazette), because our generous and endlessly wise paying members have joined the Nerve family to support our work: thank you to all of you!

It’s been another busy week. I was back in Liverpool on Monday breaking the news that Lord Tom Watson of Palantir – the former deputy leader of the Labour party, who’s now taken up the role of “senior vice-president UK” at the firm – had sent one of its fiercest critics, MP Clive Lewis, a letter that enumerated all the times that Lewis had spoken about Palantir. The spytech firm had, in effect, been spying on him. If they had done that to an elected member of parliament, who else might they have surveilled?

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The truth is that Palantir’s bet on buying a Labour lord smells like desperation. Yesterday marked a day of protests, including outside its head office in London – we were there! – and around the country, and now the Financial Times is reporting that Andy Burnham is looking for a British alternative for Palantir’s NHS and Ministry of Defence contracts.

It couldn’t come at a more urgent moment. As the indefatigable Max Colbert reveals in our latest piece, the firm has now accrued a staggering £1bn of contracts with the UK state. The danger is that Palantir’s software – and therefore Peter Thiel’s political values and relationships – becomes so embedded that it’s impossible to extract.

If our members weren’t funding this work, it simply wouldn’t have been done. So thank you.

And if you read for free and would consider upgrading you can do so here, we would be so grateful.

I’ll hand over to the others with the rest of this week’s stories, including a brilliant piece from Stewart Lee on the “Fairford Five” farce and an interview with the great Salman Rushdie.

Have a good weekend!

Carole

About michelleclarke2015

Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.

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