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SueGenevanana's avatar

Palantir got onto the NHS during Covid for £1, then got a £330 million contract. Don’t be fooled by the methods used to gain access and then cause mayhem. Farage and his cronies are only after the money, just like Trump. All the tech bros want to destroy society as we know it so take the blinkers off.

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Den Howlett's avatar

The JCB reference is interesting. It seems the machine is effective and cost effective but what’s to stop a future Reform gov from mandating its use nationally and thereby handing JCB an open chequebook?

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Jacky Smith's avatar

From what I've heard, this operation is falling flat before it even starts.

Its "staff" have no more access to local government data than I do - data protection ought to mean that it can be told only what's available to any member of the public or journalist.

Any authority that grants more access than this will be setting itself up for investigation & at least criticism if not punishment by the ICO.

Presumably that's why Ffarij is complaining about "obstructive" local government officers? That's probably what he was hoping to get out of the whole programme: an opportunity to criticise.

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Bill Sinclair's avatar

Good read. In case uou haven't already seen this, it's also worth a read: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/23/reform-luxury-champagne-lunch-hotel-election-spending-expenses-figures

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A View from the Cheaper Seats's avatar

Reform frames “cutting waste” as common sense, but without transparency or legal safeguards, that efficiency becomes a tool for bypassing accountability and consolidating power. Streamlining should never mean sidelining democracy

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Natalie's avatar

Hi Sam, great work, but I can make a plea for not repeating Trump/Farage terminology - like DOGE. It normalises a false narrative, brainwashes people into adopting it and destroys critical thinking. I would put it in inserted commas, or refer to it as so-called DOGE, and always give the critical explanation that it is a Trump/Musk construct to dismantle public services, that shows where Reform gets its influence from and bears no relevance to UK politics.

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Rob Bradley's avatar

This is probably one of those rare times where GDPR data protection, now a fairly mundane piece of protocol, could demonstrate its power.

Anyone seeking access to council owned data must provide basic assurance that they are not going to disclose personal information. I appreciate that by the time prosecution would happen is after evidence of this, and so would present a risk in terms of what has been extracted, but at the very least, flag where these contractors try to access and be savage.

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mac jordan's avatar

I find this all very sinister. And the only legitimate way that i know to take over a council is electoral.

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Olynpuss's avatar

Keep on exposing this Trumpist playbook corruption! 👏🏼👏🏼

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