Mr Polanski, I know you have a reputation for being scrupulous about checking your facts, but you’ve missed an important detail. My contract requires me to remain on leave from the Lords, surrender my parliamentary pass and forgo all access and voting rights for the duration of my employment at Palantir. I do not, therefore, take any whip. I fear this makes me rather less useful to the whips’ office than you imply.

Nobody wants to buy a service they can’t walk away from. Palantir’s critics have long claimed we ‘lock in’ our customers. We don’t. This short film explains why. It’s the first in a series on the gap between the rhetoric about Palantir and the work we actually do.