My audits can be found here for paid subscribers (how I fund my journalism):

Today’s examples are university grants, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). In my view AHRC should be cut immediately by any sane government.

It is responsible for wasting colossal sums on the likes of The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000, an £840k study that is still ongoing!

AHRC falls under the remit of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a quango that was awarded £8,811 million by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology between 2025-26.

AHRC, in turn, received £70 million from that budget. Below you can get a good idea of how it’s been spending taxpayers’ money…

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You couldn’t make it up…

On the same day a poor man in Belfast was near-decapitated, with a Sudanese man charged with attempted murder, the taxpayer-funded City of Sanctuary Sheffield is advertising a “Far Right Resistance Workshop”.

Taking place on June 20, you can “Hear from people with lived experience of the UK border regime and discuss organising for migrant justice.”

The event is being put together by SADACCA (Sheffield and District African Caribbean Community Association), which lists Sheffield City Council, South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner and The Parole Board as partners.

City of Sanctuary Sheffield is an an offshoot of City of Sanctuary UK. The former received £574,680 in taxpayer funding between 2021-25, mostly through grants from Sheffield City Council and is in my audit below (accounting for £663,116,359 in taxpayer funding):

Another event promoted by the charity (taking place today) is titled “Solidarity with Sudan Film”, an “evening of film, discussion, Sudanese food and music, featuring human rights activists, humanitarian organisations, and people with lived experience of migration from Sudan.”

Great timing.

Today’s YouTube video:

The economy may be on its knees, but at least taxpayers are being charged £1,555,506 to “revolutionise the academic understanding and policy frameworks surrounding LGBTIQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and questioning) asylum”, ey?!

Yes, this is an actual study funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through its Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) scheme.

While not the worst UKRI creation (which is undoubtedly the Arts and Humanities Research Council), the FLF is responsible for some real horrors, such as Decolonising Justice: Vernacular Justice Cultures Beyond the Liberal Order (which was awarded £1,164,119 and is currently underway).

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Notes: To find most of these studies, I typed “white privilege” into the UKRI search tool. I’ve emboldened some interesting sentences in each abstract:

Confronting whiteness: white Britons, complicity and the white racial identity, a taxpayer-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge

“Utilising decolonial and Critical Race thought to explore how white Britons relate to and understand whiteness. This project will begin to address a gap in scholarship by understanding racial hierarchy through the lens of whiteness, viz white Britons' understandings of their own whiteness and racial experience. The research will also interrogate whiteness as a far-reaching and deep-rooted social issue.”

Set in stone? ‘Desired whiteness’ and the urban space: A collaborative research in (post) colonial Chile, a £246,160 research project at the University of Sheffield (with Chile described as an “excellent location” for study - suggesting that travel may have been involved in the project)

“Issues of race have long been silenced in many (post)colonial contexts in Latin America and beyond, and are not established in public discourse, especially in relation to the implicit social norm of ‘whiteness’. Nevertheless, as sadly highlighted by the Covid-19 health emergency and by the BLM protests after the murder of George Floyd, inequalities are closely linked to racialisation processes, shaping social life in many cities across the world.”

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Between 2021-25, taxpayers were charged £16,765,000 for Refugee Action…

… a charity that has been very vocal about last Saturday’s Unite the Kingdom march in London.

Today it sent out a newsletter titled “London's far-right march won't silence us”, which began: “We’re doing everything we can right now to support people seeking safety, who are feeling more and more fearful following the weekend’s hateful far-right organised march in London.”

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Warning: This article includes explicit images

The Southbank Centre, which received £101,053,330 from taxpayers between 2021-25, recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.

Danny Boyle, among others, was tasked with putting together a multi-act performance titled “You Are Here” (the whole thing was given one star by The Telegraph and three stars by The Times and Guardian).

Extraordinarily, this “birthday takeover” included Inferno London (pictured below)…

… a “Queer art rave and cultural institution” whose Instagram page includes images like this:

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I can’t say I’m all that tempted by the Southbank Centre’s upcoming show, Farm Fatale, which is about five scarecrows “who have lost their original jobs thanks to climate change” and “come together in a commune”.

Created by “world-renowned French artist and director Philippe Quesne”, Farm Fatale “envisions an absurdly charming universe, inhabited by gentle dreamers and activists who have an urgent ecological message for our times.”

Charming?!

More like ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING:

Though perhaps not as terrifying as the bill attached to the Southbank Centre. Between 2021-25 it received £101,053,330 from taxpayers:

To be fair to the Southbank Centre - which is celebrating its 75th anniversary today - it puts on a lot of shows and caters to many different tastes. It’s not ALL BAD (I even found myself booking a gig in the course of this research, dun dun dunnnn).

Still, will taxpayers be happy to subsidise the following?

• The Rest Is Politics: The Special Relationship with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, as well as The Rest is Politics: Off the Record

• Empire Live where “William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the good, the bad and the ugly of imperial history”

• Olly Alexander: The Future of Queer Storytelling

• Mya-Rose Craig: Beyond the Climate Crisis

• Ash Sarkar: The Future of Relationships

And can £101,053,330 be justified given the state of our economy?

Never mind that the Southbank Centre charges people a “restoration levy” AND booking fee AND tries to add on £5 in donation to the Centre when you buy tickets. Behold, a screenshot of my lived experience below (I removed the £5 donation but had no other choice about the other bits):

How much money does this place need?!

Unfortunately this is just the norm in the arts sector, as readers can see with my latest charity audit. The running total for taxpayer-funded charities in the arts is £136,102,040:

Yesterday’s video:

Readers may know that I keep detailed audits on charity spending in my Resources section (available to Paid Subscribers):

I have recently updated my list of ALL taxpayer-funded charities and the total comes to a huge £1.8 BILLION!

Bear in mind that this accounts for 50 charities alone (over the last five tax years) and there are over 170k in total registered on the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

I have been dividing charity spending by theme, including asylum and migration…

… think tanks…

… and the arts:

Other resources include:

• The 10 most expensive Foreign Office grants in 2023–24

• List of countries that can vote in UK elections

• The Red-Green alliance: how the British Left organises

Remember this when the Government next brings up “austerity”!

From 2024:

“Will you help people like Abduallah who are being pushed into crisis and isolation?” asks Refugee Action, a charity that received £16,765,000 in taxpayer funding between 2021-25:

I don’t think taxpayers will be very happy when they see its activities - never mind the hundreds of millions they are already being charged for de facto open-border charities:

For instance, Refugee Action provides “activist packs” to give people “everything [they] need to become an advocate for refugee rights - from information about our ongoing campaigns, to practical guidelines on how to mobilise and take action.”

Activists are encouraged to influence their MP, “organise a letter writing event” and make their “community a place of sanctuary” - by working with open-border charity City of Sanctuary UK:

Throughout March, Refugee Action is also encouraging people to “March for Refugees” to help “drown out the voices of hate.”

You can discover more of its activities on its Instagram feed, where it posts important information such as this beautiful quote about Pokémon.

“Pokémon taught a generation that movement, exploration, and diversity make worlds stronger.

“Migration is not new. It is not abnormal. It is how societies grow.

“Britain has always been shaped by movement, including people seeking safety.

“Maybe the lesson was there all along.

#pokemon30”

I don’t think Pikachu or Charizard demanded hundreds of millions from taxpayers, though…

For paid subscribers:

List of 21 (and counting) asylum and migration charities costing the taxpayer £240 MILLION:

Between 2021-25, taxpayers were charged £5,944,810 for Battersea Arts Centre (BAC). So I’m sure they’ll be delighted to know it is soon hosting Second Trimester, an “ambitious new show” about a “pregnant son”.

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Over the last few years I have been keeping a beady eye on the activities of the British Council, which taxpayers were charged £1.20 billion for between 2020-24.

The charity says it “creates friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries.” It is the perfect example of what Establishment types call “soft power”; an institution that apparently reinforces what a great country the UK is and strengthens its global ties. British Council employees have even been awarded MBEs “for services to UK Soft Power”.

In reality, the British Council is a woke horror-show, as shown in its recent grant scheme only applicable to organisations that are “diverse-led and/or working with underrepresented voices and either completely new to international work or just starting to work beyond the UK.”

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It’s not been a good month for dogs.

Earlier in February GB News commentator Scarlett MccGwire suggested “one of the problems is dogs” when it comes to making the countryside more inclusive, before touching on “the fact that a lot of Muslims find dogs very difficult”. Clip here.

Yesterday, in a now-deleted tweet, Camden Council launched a consultation on “responsible dog ownership”. The Council is proposing to extend its Public Spaces Protection Order, which could mean “dogs not being allowed in certain areas in [Camden’s] parks and green spaces”.

Anyone can access the consultation here, which closes on February 26. You can answer it even if you neither live or work in Camden.

It asks questions such as:

How often over the last 12 months have you witnessed antisocial behaviour linked to dog ownership/ fouling in public places in Camden that are managed by Camden Council? (See Appendix A)

Dogs are not allowed in certain areas within Camden’s Parks and Green Spaces. To what extent do you agree or disagree that dogs should not be allowed in the areas listed in Appendix A

(So the council has already taken steps to inhibit the movements of our four-legged friends.)

Do you support the proposal made by Camden Council to extend the current Public Space Protection Order deal with dog control and dog fouling in public places?

The form also asks about your ethnicity, sexuality and gender:

Camden Council’s tweet received thousands of angry replies and hundreds of thousands of views before it was deleted. A bit ironic for a council that apparently wants to know what the public thinks. In general, councils love launching endless consultations to give the impression of caring about residents’ views, then pressing full-steam ahead with what they wanted all along (see “liveable neighbourhoods” and LTNs!)

Are we seeing a war on dogs?

More:

Today I can reveal that taxpayers funded a research project titled “Queer AI for the Ally” under an entity titled “The Digital Good Network”. The network was launched in 2022 “with a £4 million investment from the [taxpayer-funded] Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] and £1 million from collaborating organisations.”

A webpage about the project, awarded funding in 2025, reads:

“Educating even the most well-intentioned allies about queer identities and experiences can be emotionally burdensome. It can require disclosures that risk precarity and even danger. And as regressive politicking further threatens the safety and wellbeing of queer individuals, allyship – encompassing all positive ways of supporting the rights of marginalised communities – has become more vital than ever.

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Last week, Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, was photographed trying “the excellent new cycle lanes on Lambeth Bridge”.

He was joined by two cycling groups, the London Cycling Campaign and Cycle Sisters UK. In this piece I am going to delve into the latter as an example of how ridiculous identity politics has become, so much so that there are now exercise charities only open to minorities.

Case in point: Cycle Sisters describes itself as “award-winning charity which creates accessible and empowering spaces for Muslim and ethnically diverse women to cycle and become more healthy, confident and connected.”

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In her Budget speech in November last year, Rachel Reeves told the public that the UK’s net financial debt was £2.6trillion: 83% of GDP.

She also promised “stability for our economy” and “security for our public finances”.

With that being said, why on earth are taxpayers being charged for a study titled “Reducing Disability Stigma in Kenya through Strategic Media Representations”?

This post is free to read. Support my research by taking out a subscription or making a donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you to everyone who has funded my work.

It kicks off this January and lasts a year, costing £87,751. Some may point out that that’s a fairly small sum in the grand scheme of things, but even spending a penny on this is utterly stupid (and it’s just a microcosm of the whole system).

Here’s an exert from its abstract:

“Ableist portrayals in East African media have significantly contributed to the stigmatisation of disabled people, resulting in reduced opportunities in housing, employment, healthcare and civic engagement (Ndavula and Lidubwi, 2022; Rugoho, 2024). Collaborating with the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), Signs TV and Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY), this project will pilot the design and testing of a toolkit for inclusive, non-stigmatising disability representations in Kenyan mainstream media. The aim is to enable media makers to sustainably reduce stigma and improve social attitudes through media content, considering the intersection of disability, age, gender, religion, class and other social identities.”

Taking place at Bournemouth University (ideally-placed for research in Africa), the project is funded by the utterly atrocious Arts and Humanities Research Council:

Its lead researcher is Dr Catalin Brylla, who is Bournemouth’s “Principal Lecturer in Film and TV and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice”.

“He is also Fellow of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image and Chair of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.”

According to his profile on Bournemouth University’s website, “Catalin undertakes research in the areas of media audiences, social cognition, cognitive film theory, stereotypes, embodied experience, representation, ethnography, disability, gender, post-colonialism and practice-led research. His research is practice-led and impact-driven, and it aims for reducing the stigma of marginalised communities.”

In the past he worked on an “AHRC-funded project on disability and media advocacy in Tanzania”, and he has “made several feature documentaries that represent marginalised or stigmatised social groups, aiming to bypass 'othering' stereotypes. These include "Zanzibar Soccer Dreams", portraying women's football on the predominantly Muslim island of Zanzibar.”

In addition to this absolutely critical work, he has supervised a PhD project on “An Ethnography of Political Activism against Gentrification in Hackney”.

Deep state interlude

Interestingly, Brylla’s Bournemouth profile also shows how his work contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals:

While trawling taxpayer-funded grants, I have noticed that many abstracts bring up the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals - as if ticking off a box to get funding. Hmm!

Anyway…

Dr Brylla’s research is utterly pointless. I doubt Kenya asked for him to “Map opportunities and obstacles in the Kenyan media industry for changing media practices”, and UK taxpayers certainly didn’t.

Sometimes I think the UK effectively has “Universal Basic Income”, it’s just that we are paying for crazy numbers of “academics” to sit around decolonising their own farts all day (they may as well be doing that).

As if taxpayer-funded grants weren’t bad enough, The National Lottery is pretty hideous too - as I have been keen to emphasise in past pieces:

Today I will explain how The National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF) recently funded “a gender identity support group” titled “Squirrel Friends”:

I discovered this using the excellent “Doge Finder” tool created by my colleague Sean Proctor. You can find it at doge-uk.com (we are still beavering away on operation “DOGE UK”!)

If you go to the website and click “Menu”, you will be able to trawl multiple grants (from universities to charities):

Here are TNLCF’s grants (for 2004-2025) - a whopping £12.18 billion’s worth!

I clicked on TNLCF Grants 2024-25, and then chose “Transgender” from the dropdown menu. Our search tool is quite crude but incredibly useful for identifying woke waste (given we are combing through masses of data):

Behold, the grants that “Transgender” bring up:

I’m afraid my eyes were most-drawn to the word “Squirrel” (even though I know there are other problematic examples above).

Below I have highlighted a £19,482 grant that went towards “Squirrel Friends - A Transgender Network”:

It’s description reads:

Squirrel Friends - A Transgender Network in Merthyr Tydfil is using a £19482 grant to provide a safe and welcoming space for members of the LGBTQ+ community providing drop in support services counselling a safe space and to get advice through a peer-to-peer network.

On its website, Squirrel Friends says it’s a “Peer-to-Peer support group founded by three trans women from South Wales, with the aim to provide a safe and engaging place for anyone within the UK who needs support with their gender identity issues, as well as family members who may be having difficulty understanding their loved one or who just need support themselves. We were later joined by another to become what the members refer to as the Elder Squirrels.”

Nutmeg (below) is the group’s “cheeky mascot who helps us to raise awareness of our group so that we can help and support more transgendered individuals.” You can also see the National Lottery Community Fund mentioned below:

One of Squirrel Friends’ founders says “I try my best to keep our mascot #Nutmeg_Squirrel out of trouble while at public events, ( A very tricky task indeed! )”

Anyway, aren’t you soooooo glad TNLCF is supporting this…

Yet another reason not to buy a Lottery ticket!

Something I regularly find in my research is examples of the National Lottery funding odious projects. Indeed, I have previously touched upon this topic on my Substack:

Today I wanted to home in on the particularly awful National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF), which I often find awarding grants to far Left projects.

One of the worst examples is the TNLCF funding The Common Knowledge, a company that has worked with Momentum, Progressive International (which boasts Jeremy Corbyn as Co-General Coordinator) and Novara Media – to give you an idea of its political leanings.

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Did you know that November has been “Islamophobia Awareness Month”? I’ve been keeping an eye on organisations marking the event, from University College London to the National Centre for Diversity (yes, that really exists). But what about taxpayer-funded entities? Without further ado, here’s what I’ve found:

The Scouts

Not only does the organisation mark “Islamophobia Awareness Month” but it awards a “blanket badge” to scouts who mark the occasion too:

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