May 21, 2026
The data drama gets busted
London Mayor Blocks Palantir
City Hall slams the brakes as commenters cheer, jeer, and drag Palantir’s baggage
TLDR: Sadiq Khan blocked a £50 million police contract with Palantir, saying the process was mishandled, while the Met warned the move could hurt policing. Commenters mostly celebrated, turning the story into a bigger backlash against Palantir’s politics, reputation, and growing role in UK public services.
London politics just got a fresh serving of tech drama. Mayor Sadiq Khan has blocked a proposed £50 million police deal with Palantir, the American data giant that already has huge UK government contracts, after City Hall said there were serious problems with how the contract was handled. The Metropolitan Police wanted Palantir’s software to help sort through intelligence in criminal investigations, but the mayor’s office said the force appeared to focus on one company and failed to properly clear its plan. The Met fired back that the decision was “disappointing” and warned it could mean fewer officers and slower modernisation.
But in the comments? The crowd was absolutely not in a sympathetic mood for Palantir. One of the loudest reactions was simple and savage: “Excellent news.” Another commenter basically turned the whole thing into a political approval rating for Khan, saying he’s done amazingly well and hinting that his rivals look “bleak and elitist.” Others zoomed out and asked the big awkward question: how did a company with such strong links to US security agencies, Donald Trump circles, and controversial immigration and military work become so embedded in Britain at all? That’s where the thread got spicy, with one hot take declaring: “Great, now kill the NHS deal.” Even the joke energy was brutal, with Palantir’s chief executive mocked elsewhere as sounding like a comic-book villain. In short: this wasn’t just a contract dispute — commenters treated it like a referendum on who should be trusted with public money and power.
Key Points
- •London Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked a proposed £50m Metropolitan Police contract with Palantir over alleged procurement failures.
- •Mopac said the Met failed to obtain approval for its procurement strategy, describing this as a clear and serious procedural breach.
- •The Met had planned to use Palantir’s AI technology to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations.
- •Scotland Yard said the veto could slow modernisation and worsen policing pressures as it faces a £125m funding shortfall and 1,150 job cuts.
- •The article places the dispute in the context of Palantir’s wider UK public-sector contracts and broader criticism of the company’s political and government ties.