London, United Kingdom – Should Andy Burnham enter Downing Street as early as July 17, if he is confirmed unopposed as Labour leader, one of his most consequential early decisions will have nothing to do with defence spending, immigration, or the economy.It will concern a seven-year 330-million-pound ($440m) contract between NHS England and Palantir Technologies, a leading defence and intelligence software firm in the United States that received no contracts from Burnham’s Greater Manchester administration during his nine years as mayor.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe ramifications of such a decision could extend well beyond the NHS.Media reports surfaced last week that Burnham is minded to hold that line with Palantir across all of the UK government when he arrives in Downing Street.When approached by Al Jazeera, an Andy Burnham spokesperson said: “We’re not going to comment on individual government procurement contracts or companies and there are legal processes that must be followed.“However, in general, Andy’s guiding principles on procurement are that we need to be getting value for money for the taxpayer and that we need to be safeguarding people’s data and British interests.”For a company that has spent six years embedding itself across several public sector entities – the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Financial Conduct Authority – that posture is a real shift from the outgoing Labour administration led by Keir Starmer.Starmer’s government active …
