Should the UK act to stop ‘revolving door’ between politics and big business?

Facebook targeting government insiders as another ex-minister joins banking giant J.P. Morgan

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Facebook targeting government insiders as another ex-minister joins banking giant J.P. Morgan
(Image credit: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

Facebook has hired ten former UK government policy officials with insider knowledge of regulatory processes since the beginning of 2020, an investigation has found.

The Times reports that the social media giant is “systematically hiring government insiders” in a recruitment campaign that will fuel concerns over the “close relationship between the government and technology companies”.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.