Shane Tickle who um spoke to us on the record for this story and he was part of another consortium that was bidding uh for this FDP contract in the big NHS contract the 3 million pounds and he says look there’s nothing illegalhere but they had all the influence they were able to talk they had all the influence with the politicians and the policy makers and some of Global Council said uh and it’s in the piece as well
about how effectively what you’re trying what you as a company as a lobbyist you’re not trying to rig the tender
process. You’re not trying to get you know get someone to give you the contract. What you’re trying to do is influence how the tender is written.
That’s the key moment. It’s how it’s written and that will that will dictate who gets it. It’s almost predetermined once the tender is published often who
gets You were saying that about about Palanteer with the FTP contract that they they’d almost managed to write the tender for themselves. Such was their influence.
Such was their influence. And that’s the real power. The FD the FT has done some good work on this. They look at how the FT showed how um the the actual tender
documents mirrored language of Palantirs. You know, they have they actually talked about uh stuff the Palunteer does. You know, it was like without naming the company, they had,
you know, they had without using Palanteer’s name, it was very clear. And that’s where the lobbying the influence happens. And it’s really striking. It’s very successful.
QUESTIONS:
Does the public realize/understand how the “Swamp” works?
Is there any way to avoid self-serving tender requests?
Is there any way to penalyze companies that employ such tactics?
How feasible is it for the government to extract itself from these relationships?