INVESTIGATIONS IN GOVERNMENT (IN)EFFICIENCY COMING TO BRITAIN?

Dr Chan Abraham
Mar 12
2 min read

Many of us in Britain are welcoming the extraordinary energy and output of President Trump and his hit-the-ground-running administration, not least of which among the great signs are Elon Musk's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).

And we are thinking that we need the same.

We know that there is massive waste and corruption in the (mis)management of our public monies, but who is calling this minority Labour government (and their similarly culpable predecessors) to account?

Clearly, it starts with us, The People, ramping up the pressure.

Reading Charlotte_Gill article, is not for the faint hearted. Following Musk DOGE exposures, many Brits are left speculating about how our own taxes may be misused, murmurings are starting regarding a “DOGE UK”.

The “Woke Waste” details tens of millions of pounds in taxpayer waste, and the parallels with the US are striking.

For example, if you think USAID’s projects sound ghastly, you will be horrified by what the UK government-sponsored quango UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) spends money on.

Many Brits will have never heard of it despite being charged £9 billion per year for its work.

Take the awarding of £668,244 in taxpayer-funded grants to a four-year study titled “Pregnant Men: An International Exploration of Trans Male Experiences and Practices of Reproduction”. by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here are examples of the “research” it has funded, including active projects:

- The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000 – Birmingham City University (£841,830)

- Cuteness In Contemporary Environmental Culture: Developing Ecopoetic Practice (£120,766)

- Queerness in nineteenth-century transatlantic spiritualism (approx £20k per year — a Phd)

- In Our Own Words: Documenting Everyday Lives of Queer People in Central Asia (£34,611)

- (De)colonial Ecologies in 21st-century insular Hispanic Caribbean film (£205,543)

- Comics and Race in Latin America (£759,293)

- Decolonising the Museum: Digital Repatriation of the Gaidinliu Collection from the UK to India (DiMuse) (£805,769)

- Perverse Collections: Building Europe’s Queer and Trans Archives (£136,909)

With the AHRC splashing hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on gay porn and “cuteness” studies, you’d think we wouldn’t need any more. Shockingly, taxpayers were charged £296,193,050 (between 2020-24) for The British Academy to fund projects such as: New Theory of Indian Women’s Pacifist Thought (£348,706).

Despite having “British” in the title, the Academy loves funding foreign students — awarding millions last year to international professors to study here, who were also offered “childcare support” and the ability to work in their “home institution overseas”.

One international student received £196,350 for his project From queer ecology towards haunted aiesthesis: disorientation, care and futurities in the LGBTQIAPN+ artists’ moving image from the Brazilian Amazon.

The Arts Council England (ACE) invests in “artists and organisations but taxpayers may not be so convinced. Take Soho Theatre, receives £614,582 in annual funding, last year held the Femmes of Colour Comedy Club where “White audience members are encouraged to check their privilege at the door”.

Would white taxpayers be thrilled to learn that they are funding people to hector them?

Thanks to Annamaria Migano for the information.

See the article: What would DOGE UK look like? | Charlotte Gill | The Critic Magazine