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The Guardian Politics27 Jul 2026

How Palantir got into the NHS - podcast

The investigative journalist Lucas Amin reports on how the tech company Palantir won a £330m contract with the NHS … and what happened once its software was introduced How did Palantir – sometimes described as ‘the world’s scariest company’ – start working with the NHS? The investigative journalist Lucas Amin shares the findings of his and his colleague Peter Geoghegan’s investigation into the tech company and its relationship with the UK’s public health service – and tells a story of controvers

DefenceHealthcare
The Guardian Politics26 Jul 2026

RAF Chinook crash victims’ families ask Andy Burnham for review of disaster

PM urged to end ‘cover-up culture’ and order independent review taking in evidence that has emerged on 1994 crash The families of those killed in an RAF Chinook crash in 1994 have urged Andy Burnham to end Britain’s “cover-up culture” and order an independent review into the disaster. Twenty-nine serving military personnel died when the Chinook HC2 helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in south-west Scotland during a flight from Northern Ireland. Continue reading...

Defence
The Guardian Politics26 Jul 2026

Is Burnham’s Oxbridge-heavy cabinet a sign of social mobility or lack of progress on class?

PM’s team can be seen as backward step even though in some ways it is more diverse. Yet its makeup points to wider access to power Race, school, gender: the makeup of Andy Burnham’s cabinet – in charts Like 20 British prime ministers before him, Andy Burnham’s new cabinet minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan, went to Eton. After graduating from the country’s most elite private school, Narayan attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied – what else? – PPE (politics, philosophy and economics

PoliticsEconomyDefence
The Guardian Politics26 Jul 2026

Andy Burnham says he will disagree with Trump in public if necessary

PM promises to ‘defend national interest before anything else’ in first big broadcast interview since entering No 10 Andy Burnham has promised to disagree with Donald Trump if necessary, including in public, in his first big broadcast interview since becoming prime minister. Burnham’s comments came as Wes Streeting, the new defence secretary, said he did not believe the Trump administration was looking for allies who “suck up”, but rather those with the confidence to set out disagreements when n

Defence
The Guardian Politics26 Jul 2026

Am I a chicken-shop lefty? Here's what a French fast food row taught me about politics | Coco Khan

Feathers are flying over the halal chicken chain Master Poulet opening a branch in gentrified Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine – it’s an issue of wealth and class we know only too well How do you like your progressive politics? Are you net-zero left or anti-identity politics left? A “legalising drugs” kind of radical or someone whose public sector solidarity includes police? Nato or Nat-no? The reputation for infighting in lefty spaces – where policy disagreements harden into personal tests of morality – ne

PoliticsDefenceCrime
The Guardian Politics25 Jul 2026

The UK has its first Catholic PM – but don’t expect a US-style religious culture war to follow

Trump administration has clashed with Vatican on social issues but Burnham’s faith is shaped by different principles With the appointment of Britain’s first lifelong Roman Catholic prime minister, the faith is now in a prominent political position on both sides of the Atlantic. But while Donald Trump’s administration, in particular the vice-president, JD Vance – a Catholic convert – has placed Catholicism at the heart of its culture wars and repeatedly clashed with the Vatican over the US’s har

PoliticsDefenceHousing
The Guardian Politics25 Jul 2026

Home Office rejects Palestinian Jerusalemite woman’s UK visa but approves husband’s

Officials not satisfied Therese Abdallah is a ‘genuine visitor’ and believe she would not leave after visit to son in London A Palestinian Jerusalemite who lives in London has been left devastated after a planned trip by his parents had to be cancelled when the Home Office ruled his mother was not a “genuine visitor” but granted his father a visa. Karim Abdallah, who has lived in the UK since 2019, was looking forward to hosting his parents, Therese Abdallah, 69, a retired English teacher, and h

ImmigrationDefenceHousing
The Guardian Politics25 Jul 2026

Warning: Australian politicians are importing the British right’s visions of doom | Jack Jacobs

Having met Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and Tommy Robinson, Pauline Hanson is deploying their rhetoric in a country with a very different history of immigration In a 1950 essay, the critic AA Phillips wrote of a “cultural cringe” in which insecure Australians looked to Britain for instruction. Today, some Australians are championing far-right British actors and importing their visions of doom to Australia. In June, the former Australian Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott spoke at the Alliance for R

ImmigrationDefenceReformHousingRupert Lowe
The Guardian Politics25 Jul 2026

I grew up near Andy Burnham. This is what shaped our new PM

In the Warrington suburb of Culcheth, people are hopeful about what one of their own can achieve as the first northern PM in half a century The Cherry Tree pub is an unassuming local. On a busy road in the Cheshire village of Culcheth, it is a chain-run pub where four shots cost £8, every burger comes with a soft drink, and sport is shown all day on the big screens. It is also a favourite of Andy Burnham, the new prime minister. Many of the drinkers have a story about – arguably – Culcheth’s mos

Defence
The Guardian Politics24 Jul 2026

Was Keir Starmer’s leaving party the boozy birth of a new Labour force?

A £10,000 bar tab was drunk, there was a ‘lot of anger’, and now ex-ministers are thinking how to cooperate in future Keir Starmer’s leaving party had been planned for some time. But in years to come it might be seen as the birth of a new Labour movement. Dozens of ministers, aides and Starmer himself headed to the Grafton pub in Kentish Town on Monday night to drown their sorrows, hours after the former prime minister left Downing Street for the last time. Continue reading...

PoliticsDefence
The Guardian Politics24 Jul 2026

My generation shouldn’t be scared of a care tax – we’re paying one already | Gaby Hinsliff

If Andy Burnham is minded to grasp the nettle, he will need to sell it to people like me. The right will call it a ‘death tax’ – why not a levy for ageing well? One of the last things Andy Burnham did before entering Downing Street was to go and see his father. Now living in a nursing home, Roy Burnham has Alzheimer’s and isn’t really aware of his son’s new job. But perhaps the prime minister wanted, in part, to try to explain why he might not be visiting so often in future. Gaby Hinsliff is a G

PoliticsEconomyDefence
The Guardian Politics23 Jul 2026

Take Centrica’s gas storage warning seriously – Britain still needs secure supplies | Nils Pratley

One task awaiting new energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh is devising a plan to avoid a crisis by the end of the decade Welcome to the energy secretary job, Miatta Fahnbulleh. You have a politically tricky decision to make on whether to approve production at the Jackdaw gasfield and the Rosebank oilfield. But here’s another one that can’t wait much longer: what’s the broader plan to ensure Britain avoids a gas supply crisis in 2030? By way of reminder, one of the more alarming reports published b

PoliticsDefence