Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey speaking during the Liberal Democrats spring conference in York, March 15, 2026
Anti-war campaigners slam Lib Dem leader’s calls for Britain to build its own nuclear deterrent
ANTI-WAR campaigners hit back today at Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey’s calls for Britain to build its own nuclear deterrent, warning his plans were “a disaster” that would provoke further wars.
Peace activists slammed the proposals saying the hundreds of billions needed to build such an arsenal would mean deep cuts to public services and would “drive up poverty and social deprivation.”
Sir Ed’s comments come amid renewed scrutiny over the so-called special relationship with the US as Britain risks being dragged further into the war in the Middle East.
Tony Blair’s think tank and consulting firm is proving to be highly influential with Labour in government | (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Exclusive: Tech firms such as TBI are embedding staff in government, sparking fears AI policy is being ‘outsourced’
The Tony Blair Institute and the Ellison Institute of Technology sent senior staff members to work in the government department tasked with developing AI policy, openDemocracy can reveal.
UK tech firm Faculty, which has links to the TBI, also embedded a member of staff in the Department of Science, Information and Technology (DSIT).
In one case, the TBI hired a senior civil servant tasked with leading the government’s AI programme, then seconded them straight back to their old job in the department – a potential loophole in rules intended to stop former civil servants from using their connections to lobby old colleagues.
In another, a different TBI staffer wrote on LinkedIn that he had played a key role in drafting the government’s flagship AI Opportunities Action Plan, its far-reaching blueprint for AI policy, during an 11-month secondment to DSIT.
The government is not required to declare secondments, meaning there is no public record of the companies that gain significant access and influence through these arrangements – nor the policies their secondees advocate for.
But openDemocracy has found that arms firms Thales and Qinetiq, tech consultancy Capgemini, and pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca have also sent staff members to work in DSIT.
Responding to our findings, Kamila Kingstone, programme lead at said: “When individuals with close ties to vested commercial interests are embedded at the heart of policymaking, it creates real risks of conflicts of interest. It enables Big Tech to capture and help set the very rules that should regulate it.
“At a minimum, the government should publish annually a list of who has been brought in on secondment, their conflicts of interest, and any mitigations in place. At a time when public trust in politics is at rock bottom, the government should be going the extra mile to be sure it is transparent about who is influencing policy behind the scenes”
Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward told openDemocracy: “Starmer’s Labour Party has no values or vision, so it has outsourced its policy development process to corporate interests. Unethical companies have funnelled dirty money through ‘think tanks’ and agencies to shape the government’s positions in favour of Big Tech.”
A government spokesperson told openDemocracy: “We make no apologies for bringing cutting-edge expertise from UK academia and industry into the heart of Government.”
‘Smooth transition’
Dr Laura Gilbert left her position as the director of the UK government’s Incubator for Artificial Intelligence programme in December 2024, ending a four-year career in the heart of government.
Less than four weeks later, she was back in the Department of Science, Information and Technology – the department tasked not only with developing the regulation of AI tech in the wider economy but also with its rollout across government.
This time, though, Gilbert was not on the civil service payroll, but working for the Tony Blair Institute, a consultancy founded by the former Labour prime minister to advise governments on various policy areas – particularly tech – and the Ellison Institute of Technology, an organisation founded by US billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, reportedly the world’s second-richest man.
The two firms had recruited her to run their joint AI for Government project before immediately seconding her back to her old office.
Gilbert’s secondment suggests a loophole in the business appointment rules, which state that senior civil servants leaving government to work in the private sector should “not become personally involved in lobbying the UK government on behalf of your new employer and/or its clients” for two years.
But there is no rule preventing their new employers from sending them straight back to work in government, where they can directly influence policy.
Gilbert told openDemocracy she was sent back to the department “to support the smooth transition of my dedicated and talented technical AI team into DSIT… working with my (interim) replacement to hand over for a short period via a secondment from the Ellison Institute”.
The TBI said Gilbert had “agreed to help oversee the transfer of her team into DSIT”, while the Ellison Institute did not respond to a request for comment.
After four months, Gilbert left DSIT again to take up her current role as head of AI in the TBI. But openDemocracy has uncovered that her secondment is part of a broader pattern of tech firms sending staff to shape Labour’s tech policy – a pattern that began when the party was still seen as the government-in-waiting.
In 2023, the Tony Blair Institute paid for Labour’s shadow tech secretary, Peter Kyle, to travel to Brussels to attend its programme on science and tech policy. The following year, he visited the US on a trip paid for by Lord Sainsbury, a Labour donor, and consulting firm Hakluyt & Company, which has interests in AI through an investment fund. There, Kyle met with tech giants, including Ellison’s Oracle.
Kyle also benefited from tech companies seconding staff to him. During the 2024 election campaign, Faculty, a company that provides software and consultancy on AI, sent a staff member to support his work.
While Labour reported that the staffer was in Kyle’s office on one day a week for two months, it valued the arrangement – a donation-in-kind – at £36,000. Based on a standard seven or eight-hour working day, this suggests their hourly salary was around £600.
Tech consulting firm Public Digital also seconded a senior member of staff to work for Kyle before the election. Emily Middleton, the staffer in question, was later brought into DSIT as a senior civil servant on a salary of between £125,000 and £208,000 after Kyle was appointed to lead it. She had previously been seconded to Labour Together.
In October 2024, Faculty sent a mid-level staffer to Kyle’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology on a four-month secondment. It is not clear whether this was the same person who had been seconded to Kyle’s office earlier in the year.
Faculty has grown its government business since Labour took office, including winning its two largest ever public contracts: a £6m deal with the Department for Education and another worth £4.5m with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The government declined to answer openDemocracy’s questions on the nature of the Faculty staffer’s work, while the firm did not respond to our request for comment.
The following month, in November 2024, the Tony Blair Institute paid for its senior policy adviser, Tom Westgarth, to be installed in DSIT.
Westgarth remained in the department for 11 months, with his LinkedIn page suggesting he held significant influence over public AI policy. It says he advised the government “on delivering the AI [Opportunities] Action Plan” and provided “strategic steer across a range of AI Action Plan priorities”.
“Labour are currently doing everything they possibly can to bring predatory Big Tech into the UK economy, on Big Tech’s terms,” said Jim Killock, the executive director at Open Rights Group. “They have collapsed competition regulation, shifted data protection to favour business needs over personal data, and promised Big Tech all the help they need to establish themselves at every level of government.
“Adding in senior officials who know how to do Big Tech’s bidding is just one more sign that the UK is being asset-stripped and locked into a future of permanent rent extraction by Big Tech. There is an alternative – a strategy for digital sovereignty that prioritises UK open source. We won’t get that by asking staff from the TBI and Ellison Institute to help write UK tech policy.”
A government spokesperson said: “We make no apologies for bringing cutting-edge expertise from UK academia and industry into the heart of government. We are determined to drive momentum on policies supporting some of the most important research and technologies of the future, by drawing on Britain’s wealth of science and tech expertise, and our secondment schemes are a key part of this.
“This government is a champion for our science and technology sectors across the board – not individual companies. The usual propriety and ethics rules apply for all of our secondees.”
The TBI said: “Tom Westgarth’s secondment is public knowledge, he announced it at the time.”
Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Starmer said it here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefiting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity.
Top polling party’s moves to ‘undeclare’ the climate emergency and scrap net zero targets could be a sign of things to come
Reform UK’s disregard of the climate crisis is already taking effect across the country. Since gaining control of 10 councils last May, the party has scrapped vital environmental goals. It has courted support from fossil fuel investors with a promise to “drill, baby, drill”. And its councillors have hijacked public debates with outright climate denialism.
Seven of the councils now controlled by Reform have abandoned important green measures. This includes ditching ambitious net zero targets and withdrawing the declaration of a climate emergency – which could threaten green investment and undermine action taken locally to deal with the crisis.
With Reform leading the polls and more local elections to come this year, what we’ve seen so far could be the tip of the iceberg.
For Lord Adair Turner, co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, the return of climate denial to public debate is “undoubtedly bad news” and presents a major setback for tackling the crisis. “We’ve got to work out how to convince people that there is a real, massive climate problem and that we do have the solutions now, which are available at relatively low cost,” he said.
We’ve been looking at how Reform has treated climate issues at a local level to gauge what might happen if it wins more councils this year – and if it comes to power in 2029.
The ‘global warming hoax’
One of Reform UK’s key campaigning pledges is the scrapping of net zero in order to cut energy bills. West Northamptonshire’s council leader Mark Arnull said: “Every resident who voted Reform UK voted for that and they must be heard.”
Of the 10 new Reform-controlled councils, seven promptly abandoned their climate promises. Of the remaining three, Lincolnshire did not have any significant climate pledges to scrap but Reform leaders there say they have “declared war” on green energy projects; Derbyshire confirmed its commitment to cutting emissions but ditched the objective to “work to address the causes, and adapt to the impacts, of climate change”; and Doncaster – which has a Reform majority but a Labour mayor and cabinet – has maintained its climate pledges.
The Reform councils’ position contrasts sharply with those controlled by other parties. Climate Emergency UK – a campaign organisation for council climate action – says it is not aware of any other local authorities that have scrapped their climate pledges. Across the UK, more than 300 councils have declared a “climate emergency” and many of those are backed up with ambitious net zero targets.
Polling suggests almost three quarters of people in the UK believe climate change is caused by human activity; a study of more than 88,000 climate-related studies found that 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree.
Yet in public debates, some Reform councillors have put forward the opposite view. In Nottinghamshire, councillor Bert Bingham said: “I’ve been involved in sustainability projects for 25 years and I’ve never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax.”
In Kent, Councillor Chris Hespe said: “It is often stated that anthropogenic climate change is ‘settled science’ and that the whole scientific community believes it. However, this is far from the case.”
Outright climate denial has permeated local debate. After Rachael Hatchett, a Green councillor in Derbyshire, spoke up in a debate about solar farms last year, she was heckled by another councillor shouting: “There is no climate change!”
Reform’s claim that scrapping net zero will cut energy bills is also misleading, according to energy experts. Dhara Vyas, chief executive of industry body Energy UK, told Carbon Brief it is “crystal clear what has driven electricity bills up in the UK … it’s the wholesale costs, driven by the price of gas”.
Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Ricketts said Reform’s climate denial would have real-world impacts for Kent’s constituents. Parts of the county are recognised to be at risk of flooding and local authorities have received funding from the Environment Agency to shore up sea walls and maintain other defences.
Ricketts said this money was allocated based on the science and policymaking that Reform criticises: “There are very real effects on the people of Kent by trying to debunk these things.”
In Durham, Reform proposed retracting the climate emergency and instead declaring a “care emergency” with a focus on special educational needs. Independent councillor Chris Lines said: “Politically, the rhetoric from Reform was that if you voted against it, you were labelled as someone who didn’t care about young people. Conflating the two issues was frankly appalling.”
Lines is concerned about the impact of these declarations on the economy, pointing to research showing that the low-carbon industry was worth £1.7bn to County Durham in 2021/22. “If I was a business in that growing sector looking to invest in an area, would I really want to come here, given the direction this council is going?”
Not all the debates on net zero have involved outright climate denial. In West Northamptonshire, councillors questioned how feasible climate policies were and raised concerns about their cost – an approach that academics have labelled “climate delay”, which can hinder action on climate change.
Alan Graves, the Reform UK leader in Derbyshire, said: “We do not deny that the climate is changing… The council continues to support practical, affordable measures that cut waste, improve efficiency, and reduce costs for residents.”
Responding to whether climate denial had spread in local councils, he said he could only speak for Derbyshire but that they weren’t focusing on “culture-war labels”.
Graves added: “We do not remove policies for ideological reasons. Where we have amended plans, it is because they were vague, unfunded, sometimes unfounded or undeliverable. Our responsibility is to be honest with the public about what can realistically be achieved within local government budgets.” Reform UK and the other councils mentioned did not respond to requests for comment.
A familiar playbook
Reform UK has proudly borrowed slogans from Donald Trump’s campaigns in the US. At a recent council meeting in Durham, Reform councillor Kyle Genner painted a vivid picture of the county’s “dilapidated and deprived estates … the joblessness … the lack of dignity and hope”. He urged his fellow councillors to support the reindustrialisation of the county – including the extraction of coal, oil and gas – to “make Durham great again”.
“I’m clearly not Donald Trump,” he said. “But I do like the idea of ‘drill, baby, drill’. I do like the idea of ‘jobs, baby, jobs’.”
Reform are in the climate denial camp and the Conservatives have moved into – not climate denial, but saying they want to get away from net zero
Lord Turner
The Reform leader of the council, Andrew Husband, said this local debate held a national significance. “It’s telling the North Sea oil and gas producers, ‘Don’t give up just yet’. We’re preparing County Durham for a Reform government in 2029 so we can hit the ground running. Simple as that.”
Back in Kent, former Reform councillor Fothergill said it was “ridiculous” the county was not exploiting its abundance of gas, coal and mineral resources.
In further echoes of the Trump administration, Reform councils across the country are erasing the words climate and environment from cabinet roles, committee names and planning documents.
Where Trump set up the Department of Government Efficiency spearheaded by Elon Musk, Kent county council introduced its own Department of Local Government Efficiency, or DOLGE.
Andrew Husband speaks during the Reform UK County Durham Conference last FebruaryIan Forsyth / Getty Images
Kent’s first head of DOLGE, Matthew Fraser Moat, highlighted what he said were “several, maybe tens of millions of pounds” wasted on the county’s declaration of a climate emergency. In September last year, he said this spending should be stopped, “given that there is no discernible benefit to the world’s climate from all of [Kent county council’s] efforts over the last seven years”.
Weeks later, Kent’s council leader said Reform had saved the county £32m over four years by “undeclaring the climate emergency”, and a further £7.5m by scrapping the county council’s transition to electric vehicles.
Fraser Moat, however, told the Financial Times this month that the Reform council “had not actually made any cuts”. The DOLGE team reportedly expected to find vast amounts of waste but didn’t. Fraser Moat has since stepped down from the council’s cabinet, saying his comments were the result of a “lapse of judgement” and that his words had been twisted.
Blocking the bulldozers
Across the country, Reform-controlled councils have opposed solar projects. In Durham, the party has abandoned a plan to install solar panels on council buildings, which aimed to save the council money on energy bills.
In Lincolnshire, Reform councillor Sean Matthews told the BBC about a new solar farm development: “I’m going to do whatever I can to stop it, and that does include laying in front of those bulldozers.”
While it may not always stray into the outright climate denial Hatchett faced in Derbyshire, Ricketts said Reform’s opposition to solar is largely political. “They know that resonates with one part of their base that don’t want solar farms built on fields, but also with the other part that are anti-climate change measures.”
Time and again, the environmental issues raised in local councils came back to party politics. Independent councillor Ian McCord welcomed West Northamptonshire’s move to scrap net zero targets. “Those that are crying into their tofu and quinoa forget that they lost the May election,” he said.
This has shifted the debate on net zero across the political spectrum. Lord Turner said: “Reform, obviously, are in the climate denial camp but the Conservatives have moved into, not climate denial, but saying they want to get away from net zero.
“It’s a bit ironic that, in the face of catastrophic weather events around the world, we are losing [the cross-party] consensus. I’m under no illusion that we’re facing a more tricky situation than we were five or 10 years ago.”
This story was updated on Wednesday 25 February 2026 to reflect the fact that Nottinghamshire county council has not rescinded its climate emergency declaration.
Reporters: Josephine Moulds and Grace Murray Environment editor: Rob Soutar Deputy editor: Chrissie Giles Editor: Franz Wild Fact checker: Ero Partsakoulaki Production editor: Alex Hess
TBIJ has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
MPs have demanded that Health Secretary Wes Streeting “listen to experts” who warned against implementing his “disastrous” plans to further privatise the NHS.
At a debate chaired by Labour MP Richard Burgon in Westminster on Tuesday, MPs heard new expert evidence exposing that levels of privatisation within the health service were far higher than previously thought.
Mr Burgon said: “We need to push back against this Mandelsonian wing of the Labour party. I want Wes to hear what is being shared in this room.
“Privatisation is disastrous for patients and for workers. It’s not the way forward.”
The meeting with the NHS working group coincided with the publication of a report co-authored by campaigners Keep Our NHS Public and the 99% Organisation.
It found the level of private involvement in the NHS to be about 30 per cent, rather than the more widely known figure of 7 per cent.
…
MPs including Rachel Maskell, Andy McDonald, Neil Duncan-Jordan heard testimonies on the “disastrous” state of privatisation in the NHS from health experts, NHS staff and economists.
Report co-author Mark E Thomas said: “The figure which is most referred to in this debate was 7 per cent of privatisation. But really we need to be thinking 30 per cent.”
He added: “In some specialties, more than 50 per cent of treatments are already paid for privately, such as ophthalmology for example. It’s the same for dentistry.”
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Nigel Farage attacks the NHSImage of George Osborne asking where is the money to be made in the NHS
A Job Centre Plus shop in central Portsmouth, Hampshire
THE government must cut interest rates and invest in youth as new unemployment data shows one in six young people are jobless, unions and experts warn.
Unemployment unexpectedly rose to a near five-year high with young and disabled Britons hardest hit by the shock data published by the Office for National Statistics today.
Outside of the coronavirus pandemic, this marks the highest three-month reading since the autumn of 2015.
The TUC called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to boost spending and support fragile jobs, pointing to the record level of precarious zero-hour contracts reaching 1.2 million.
Its general secretary Paul Nowak said the job market will only get better once the economy starts to recover after the ONS said the unemployment rate rose by 0.2 per cent to 5.2 per cent into the last quarter.
It also found that employment was unchanged at 75.0 per cent and inactivity is down 0.2 to 21.0 per cent.
Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey speaking during the Liberal Democrats spring conference in York, March 15, 2026
