Tom Watson has never been short of a headline. The former deputy leader of the Labour Party built much of his political reputation going after the powerful. He took on News International over phone hacking. He challenged the Home Office over mass surveillance of public data. For a long time, he was seen as one of the good guys.
So the news that Watson has now joined Palantir as a senior vice-president has landed with a particular thud.
Palantir is not your average tech company. Founded with early backing from the CIA, it has built its business on data analytics, surveillance systems and military targeting software. It works with governments and intelligence agencies across the world, and its contracts with the NHS have already sparked controversy in England over concerns about patient data and private sector involvement in public health infrastructure.
For many people, the idea of a former senior Labour figure walking into a top job at a company like that raises serious questions. Not just about Watson personally, but about what politics in this country has become.
Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, has been one of the most vocal critics of the appointment. He argues it is not simply a private career decision, but another warning sign about the health of British democracy. When politicians spend years in public life building contacts, influence and insider knowledge, and then cash in by moving to corporations with significant government interests, it corrodes public trust. And public trust, Lewis points out, is the foundation that democracy runs on.
This kind of revolving door between politics and the private sector is nothing new in England, of course. Former ministers and senior MPs crossing over to lobbying firms, defence contractors and tech giants has become almost routine. There are rules in place, overseen by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, but critics have long argued those rules are too weak and too easy to work around.
The Palantir case feels different to many observers because of the specific nature of what the company does. This is not a former politician joining a supermarket chain or a bank. Palantir operates in spaces that touch directly on civil liberties, state power and the relationship between government and citizens. Watson himself, in his political career, raised concerns about exactly those issues.
That contrast is what has made this story cut through. People are not just frustrated about the revolving door in general. They are frustrated that someone who positioned himself as a champion of privacy and accountability against powerful institutions has ended up on the payroll of a company that sits at the heart of those same debates.
The NHS angle has added another layer of sensitivity. Palantir secured a major contract to help build a new data platform for the health service in England, a deal worth hundreds of millions of pounds. That contract was contentious from the start, with campaigners and some health professionals raising concerns about data privacy and the creeping privatisation of NHS infrastructure. Having a former Labour deputy leader now working for the company is unlikely to ease those concerns.
For ordinary people watching all of this unfold, the message it sends is a familiar and depressing one. That politics is a stepping stone. That the connections made in public life get converted into private gain. That the people who are supposed to hold power to account are often just waiting for their turn to join it.
Whether Watson’s appointment crosses any legal or ethical lines is almost beside the point for many. The damage is in the optics, in the signal it sends about whose side politicians are really on.
England has been through years of political scandal, broken promises and institutional failure. Confidence in politicians is already at rock bottom. Stories like this one do not help rebuild it. If anything, they confirm what a lot of people already suspect: that the game is rigged, and that the people who make the rules are also the ones who benefit most from bending them.