Newly released communications have revealed that Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the US, facilitated efforts to connect Prime Minister Keir Starmer with Palantir founder Peter Thiel. According to a report by The Register, the request was made in a July 2025 email to Morgan McSweeney, then chief of staff to the Prime Minister.
In the correspondence, marked with the subject line "Peter Thiel," Mandelson referred to the billionaire executive as a "celebrated techie." He asked if the Prime Minister would be interested in meeting Thiel during the latter's planned visit to London in August of that year.
Mandelson is a co-founder of Global Counsel, a lobbying firm that has previously counted the US spy-tech company Palantir among its clients. The Register notes that these documents were made public in connection with investigations into Mandelson’s past associations with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Some references to Palantir within the cache were redacted by officials, citing potential prejudice to UK national security or international relations.
A history of government contracts
Palantir has secured significant roles within the UK public sector, often under scrutiny regarding the procurement process. The company was awarded more than £60 million in NHS contracts during the Covid-19 pandemic without competitive bidding. It later secured a £330 million deal for the NHS Federated Data Platform.
The firm's influence extends to defense as well, having signed an agreement with the Ministry of Defence in January 2026. The Register has previously documented how Global Counsel lobbied on behalf of Palantir in the lead-up to the lucrative NHS data contract.
Concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest have persisted for years. Matthew Swindells, a former national director at NHS England, joined Global Counsel in 2019. His ties to the firm were significant enough that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where Swindells serves as chairman, formally excluded him from any decision-making processes involving Palantir.
In December 2021, Global Counsel and Palantir hosted a joint webinar regarding the UK's life sciences vision. The event, chaired by Swindells, featured the launch of a Palantir white paper that advocated for a "logically federated, locally controlled cloud-based data infrastructure." This language closely mirrored the government's subsequent NHS data strategy released in June 2022.
