Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard is Sadiq Khan’s £151,465 per year Deputy Mayor, Communities and Social Justice (he has nine deputy mayors in total).

She is also the Chair of Praxis Community Projects, whose title is a bit ambiguous until you head to its website, which advertises “A Migrant’s Guide”:

Costing £3 per copy (or free online), the Migrant’s Guide is “interactive guide to support you through your immigration journey in the UK. For migrants, by migrants.”

It comes in different languages:

And is extremely extensive, covering:

• LGBTQI+ support

• Immigration raids

• Mindfulness activities

• Register for GP & care needs

  

• Homelessness support if you have children

• Free activities

• Universal credit

• Housing benefit & council tax

Among other areas:

You can see the whole thing here.

Like I say, £151,465 per year Weekes-Bernard is Chair of Praxis, which she describes as “a charity supporting migrants and refugees and is a Distinguished Friend of the Migration Museum.” (Which itself received £1,147,120 from taxpayers between 2021-25).

Minnie Rahman is the CEO of Praxis and another alumni of the New Economy Organisers Network (NEON)…

… which trains left-wing activists for air and otherwise, including open-border-loving Zoe Gardner.

More on NEON here:

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know that Praxis Community Projects received £4,014,260 from taxpayers between 2021-25.

It’s part of a much bigger picture, with taxpayers being charged billions for charities, many of which effectively advance open borders or other ideological positions many taxpayers disagree with.

To see more, look no further than my list of taxpayer-funded charities (asylum and migration), which comes to £261,897,909:

Apologies for the newsletter being a bit late today. I am trying to send them off at 4pm most days, but I have been beavering away on my charity lists.

The latest total is £2.6 BILLION. Gulp. Especially when you see how stupid some of these charities are - which is why I’ve noted them down in the first place.

Paid subscribers can access the full list, which tells you which charities are the Top 10 biggest recipients of taxpayer funding.

To add, this is a sample I’ve chosen - mostly based on what charities I’ve found out about first (or known about already) during the course of my research. There are 170,000 charities on the Commission for England and Wales alone, so the final taxpayer figure is likely to be even greater.

I’ve also updated by asylum and migration list.

Have you heard of Professor Sally Hines “(she/her)”, a “Gender Studies and Sociology academic” at the University of Sheffield?

When Hines isn’t busy researching “transgender, gender and sexuality theory, gender and sexual citizenship, sociologies of the body, sociologies of intimacy, intersectionality, and theories of recognition and difference”, as well as “Pregnant Men”, she can be found on X, tweeting about anything from…

…defending the “lanyard class”…

… to saying that people “really don’t have to worry” about “the future bone density of trans people”:

… to claiming that the Gender Critical movement “is now fully associated with the extreme right”…

I think it’s fair to say Hines is not the biggest fan of (and vice versa)…

… whom she accused of “obsessively tweeting about a paper that I co-wrote on trans pregnancy.”

But why shouldn’t Linehan highlight this study - seeing that Hines’ research on “Pregnant Men” received hundreds of thousands in taxpayer funding?

And that’s just the start…

Hines has been Principal Investigator on six projects that received £1,843,715 total in taxpayer funding:

All of these were funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a subsidiary of the UK Research and Innovation.

Hines is also listed as Co-investigator on a taxpayer-funded project titled ESRC Seminar Series: Critical Diversities@ the Intersection: Policies, Practices, Perspectives, which received £16,378 and ran from 2013-2015.

So all in all, Hines has led or worked on projects awarded £1,860,093 in taxpayer funding.

Let’s take a closer look at some of this work…

Pregnant Men: An International Exploration of Trans Male Experiences and Practices of Reproduction received £668,244 in total and ran from March 2017 to April 2021 at two universities (the University of Leeds and University of Sheffield).

Part of its abstract reads: “Trans male pregnancy shows how shifts in gendered and intimate practices occur within changing social institutions, technological advances and developing cultural understandings. Vice versa, such social, technological and cultural transformations impact on how individuals live their gendered, bodily and intimate lives. Diversification of gendered, sexual and intimate practices, and advances in health care practices and reproductive technology, have significantly altered contemporary experiences of pregnancy and birth.”

Then there’s Living Gender in Diverse Times, which also took part in two phases at the University of Leeds and University of Sheffield - costing taxpayers £1,057,555.

Its abstract reads:

“From coverage of Miley Cyrus' declaration that 'You Can Just Be Whatever You Want to Be' in 'Time Magazine', the introduction of a gender fluid character into the video game 'Sims 4' and Facebook's launch of multiple gender 'options', the last year and half of media coverage lends support to the 'Financial Times' End of Year (2015) pronouncement 'Year in a word: Trans: Gender discussion becomes a nuanced, fluid , 'non-binary' affair'.While there has been significant cultural interest in the ways in which young people are moving away from the traditional binary identities of male and female and adopting gendered expressions that destabilise conventional gendered norms. Academic research has yet to explore the ways in which the meanings of gender have changed for young people or to address the implications of this on gender as a social category more broadly. The overall aim of this project is to gain in-depth evidence driven knowledge of the understandings and practices of gender in the 21st C. UK amongst young people between the ages of 15-24.”

Wow, what great value for money…

Interestingly, another person Hines has been rude about on X is yours truly.

A couple of weeks ago she appeared to imply that I am part of a “politically dangerous” trend of journalists misleading the public about social sciences and humanities:

“They care nothing about evidence and wilfully mislead the public”, Hines wrote.

But where’s her evidence for that? I hope it’s obvious by now I enjoy publicising facts - which is why I encourage readers to check out the full list of taxpayer-funded research led by Professor Sally Hines.

More:

Dr Donna McCormack (they/ them) is a Senior Lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, who received £196,016.22 from the taxpayer-funded British Academy for “their” project Doing Disability Futures (which links Palestine to “disability justice” among other things).

McCormack has “a strong interest in monsters” and is “a founding member of the Monster Network”, as well as "currently developing a project on Queer Fish”, making me wonder why the British Academy ever funded they/them’s work, as well as promoting McCormack on its socials:

Worse still is that McCormack has had taxpayer funding through another channel: the absolutely abysmal Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), a subsidiary of the UK Research and Innovation - which spends “more than £9 billion of public money” every year:

Between 2018-20, McCormack was awarded £120,080 towards “their” research project Transplant Imaginaries: Haunted Times, Segregated Spaces and Embodied Ethics while working at the University of Surrey’s English department (hardly very useful for organ donation research).

The project analysed human organ transplantation “through the lens of contemporary novels and films”.

It explained that:

“Through the completion of a research monograph, the organisation of UK and international events, and the creation of multi-media outputs on transplantation, this project will analyse not only the impact biotechnologies have on how we understand the human body in relation to health and illness, but also how transplantation is tied to larger issues of national belonging, social justice and bodily ethics.”

In “their” academic profile, McCormack touches on the now-completed project, saying that “this intersection of visceral body and communities boundaries is at the heart of my research.”

Wow, this sounds sooooo useful to taxpayers/ the world.

I can’t wait to find out what McCormack studies after Queer Fish. Perhaps Queer Fishy Monsters?

Great use of over £315,000 (the amount spent on McCormack’s research by taxpayer-funded bodies).

More:

“I also have a strong interest in monsters and am a founding member of the Monster Network.”

“I am currently developing a project on Queer Fish.”

Can you believe these statements were written by a researcher awarded £196,016.22 by the British Academy? A supposedly prestigious organisation that received just under £340 MILLION from taxpayers between 2021-25:

Meet Dr Donna McCormack, a they/ them “Senior Lecturer English & Creative Writing” who received the grant for “their” project Doing Disability Futures at the University of Strathclyde.

The project “will use arts-based and speculative methods to engage with global and local histories of colonial violence and ongoing injustices, as well as to tell stories of alternative futures that disrupt existing knowledge and power hierarchies about marginalized communities”:

Wow, that sounds so incredibly useful to disabled people…

In a personal statement on “their” academic profile, McCormack explains: “my research is situated at the intersection of post- and anti-colonial studies, queer theory, and the medical humanities. In much of my work I formulate post- and anti-colonial, critical race and queercrip ways of analysing contemporary fiction in order to both critique systems of violence and to open up space for imagining what is possible. My focus is the body in the context of health and illness and trauma studies. I work across literatures from North Africa, the Caribbean and Canada.”

“They” also “have a strong interest in monsters and am a founding member of the Monster Network. I have written on Richard Goldschmidt’s theory of hopeful monsters, and I am interested in alternative evolution theories as forms of anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-homo- and transphobic resistance. I am currently developing a project on Queer Fish.”

You can read “their” whole profile here - as well as head to the Monster Network website…

… which also has its own Instagram page:

Doing Disability Futures, too, has its own website and Instagram page - which are as bonkers as you might imagine:

For instance, the Instagram page links Palestine to “disability justice”:

And yeah, the rest of it is just as weird…

The British Academy is not the first taxpayer-funded entity to fund McCormack.

Between Aug 18-Aug 20, McCormack received a £120,080 grant for “their” project Transplant Imaginaries: Haunted Times, Segregated Spaces and Embodied Ethics.

McCormack is one of two so-called experts in Critical Disability Studies/ Theory I have written about this week - the other being Professor Dan Goodley, who comes out with some utter crap (and has had over £2.4 million in taxpayer-funded grants):

Both can be found on the social media output of the British Academy and are clearly meant to be shining examples of academics in the humanities and social sciences:

But their work is not just nonsense but insulting to the people it purports to help. Hundreds of thousands - and potentially millions - of pounds could have been put into making a real difference to disabled people’s lives.

Instead we get a doctor who’s interested in queer fish and an indoor-hat-wearing professor of gobbledygook.

My video on Dr Donna McCormack:

A note: my writing schedule has been a bit random this week in the aftermath of a big family wedding (which was wonderful). Next week I am going back to my usual schedule of 4pm Monday-Thursday with a weekend round-up.

“Inflatables are important to the world in so many ways.”

These are the words of Dr Michael Shaw, yet another “academic” promoted by the British Academy, “the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences” - which received £339,073,050 from taxpayers between 2021-25.

The BA posted this video of Shaw (above), in which he explains the wonder of inflatables. I wonder if a fart sounds more intelligent than this:

“And the research that you can see behind us is several inflatable sculptures that become slightly site-specific by the fact that you take the air from the place that you inflate them and blow them up. They’re also site-specific because they start to draw the reflections of their surroundings of this amazing building onto their surfaces, and also when they’re suspended, they kind of move around on the convection currents that occur in most buildings.”

Shaw is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Loughborough University, whose pronouns are “He/him”:

You’ll be pleased to know that, aside from an AHRC Fellowship between 2005-2008, he doesn’t seem to have had much taxpayer-funding.

Even so, why are we are we being charged HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS for the British Academy? An organisation promoting an academic whose research profile reads:

“The giant inflatables seek to re-invigorate space by reconfiguring how the viewer moves around the gallery or building. Each response is wholly bespoke, and any inflatable can only exist thanks to its host architecture. The intent is to develop a meaningful interaction, whereby the sculpture reinvigorates viewers’ perceptions by complementing or contrasting the space’s geometry and flow. These universally accessible inflatables are immediately engaging for the young and family visitors; and intriguing to others as they nuance pathways of motion, block existing site-lines, create overhangs and continually curving forms that kiss the ground in limited contact points. In brief, they are sculpturally dynamic, animated works that enliven any space.”

Not forgetting its promotion of Professor Dan Goodley, an expert on “Critical Disability Studies”…

… who claims that “Depathologisation works in concert with disabled artists, disabled activists, and disabled intellectuals, whose politics have learned much from their own engagements with decolonising activists and postcolonial theorists, depathologising the university creates conversations with black scholars and others who have decolonised the university, and it pulls in disability politics as a key resource, depathologisation is therefore but one theory and practice-a praxis that sits with disability as the driving subject of critical inquiry and social change.”

Worse still, there are even more awful examples to come.

What a load of HOT AIR!

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“Rather than being a problem, disability is an opportunity”, claims Dan Goodley, a professor of “Critical Disability Studies” at the University of Sheffield in a video for the British Academy (BA) (a registered charity that received £339,073,050 from taxpayers between 2021-25).

I wrote a bit about Goodley a bit yesterday. He has led or worked on projects costing the taxpayer approximately £2.4 MILLION, as well as being a Fellow of the BA, “the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences”.

I only ever intended to use Goodley as one example (out of multiple) of how terrible the British Academy is.

However, I had to show you the utter drivel he comes out with in his video for the BA, an institution that claims to “mobilise” the humanities and social sciences to “shape a brighter future.”

Titled “Disability as a driver of change: depathologising the university”, the video features Goodley saying things like:

“Rarely in public discourse is disability offered as a productive expression of human intellectual, cultural, and political life, and this negligent approach to the transformative potential of disability is apparent in the university.”

“Depathologisation works in concert with disabled artists, disabled activists, and disabled intellectuals, whose politics have learned much from their own engagements with decolonising activists and postcolonial theorists, depathologising the university creates conversations with black scholars and others who have decolonised the university, and it pulls in disability politics as a key resource, depathologisation is therefore but one theory and practice-a praxis that sits with disability as the driving subject of critical inquiry and social change.”

“We must and can find support and solace with others, so that we can depathologise university together. And while a disability impairment or a neurodivergent identity is always a personal matter, we should not forget that the potential for activism community that’s opened up is always a public matter. We cannot do this alone, and we need each other to disrupt the university.”

There’s also Goodley’s claim that “disability is an opportunity”…

… certainly if you’re looking for taxpayer-funded grants!

What a load of nonsense this is (from a professor who had “Left politics” in his X bio):

It can’t be said enough: THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!

Goodley’s grants (approximately £2,443,528):

UK government/public body funding (ESRC, EPSRC, Research England, DIUS):

• ESRC — £731,114 (Humanising Healthcare, 2022–25)

• EPSRC/UKRI TAS Hub — £147,414 (2022–23)

• University of Sheffield/Research England — £17,000 (2022)

• ESRC — £443,000 (Living Life to the Fullest, 2017–20)

• ESRC — £425,000 (Big Society, 2013–15)

• ESRC — £255,000 (Does Every Child Matter, 2008–10)

• Prime Minister’s Initiative 2/DIUS — £40,000 (2008–10)

• ESRC — £300,000 (Parents, Professionals and Disabled Babies, 2003–06)

• ESRC — £85,000 (Self-advocacy, 1998–2001)

If you also count the European Social Fund grant (£425,000, “Jobs not Charity,” 2003–05) — EU public funds rather than UK taxpayer money directly, but publicly-sourced — that brings it to £2,868,528.

Then there’s:

• Leverhulme Trust — £489,867

• Wellcome Trust (WAARC) — £1,007,109

• Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award — £2.9m

• SCOPE — £51,500

• BAAF — £8,500

More:

“Embracing disability as a deeply intellectual source of authority can help us redefine and unpack how we live and work together differently in the university.”

These are the words of Dan Goodley, a professor at the University of Sheffield.

I discovered Professor Goodley while nosing through the Instagram feed of the British Academy, which received £339,073,050 from taxpayers between 2021-25.

The British Academy describes itself as “the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences.” Unsurprisingly for subjects increasingly recognised as complete nonsense, its output is gobbledygook upon gobbledygook - Goodley being a prime example. In the full clip, he adds: “Disability might feed into a wider practice of what I term ‘depathologisation’.”

In turn I will show you further terrible examples of British Academy research, but I thought you might want to know a bit more Goodley, who has been involved in numerous taxpayer-funded studies.

According to his research profile, “Dan is interested in theorising and challenging the conditions of disablism (the social, political, cultural and psycho-emotional exclusion of people with physical, sensory and/or cognitive impairments) and ableism (the contemporary ideals on which the able, autonomous, productive citizen is based).”

Currently he is working on research projects funded by the Leverhulme Trust (another rabbit hole for another time) and the Wellcome Trust, which received £105,998,100 from taxpayers between 2020-24.

Note: PI means “Principal Investigator” and CoI/ Co-Is means “Co-Investigator”:

He has also had grants from the UKRI via its subsidiaries the Economic and Social Research Council…

…Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council…

… and Research England:

According to Claude (my beautiful AI assistant), the total government funding for projects Goodley has led or worked on works out at approximately £2,443,528:

UK government/public body funding (ESRC, EPSRC, Research England, DIUS):

• ESRC — £731,114 (Humanising Healthcare, 2022–25)

• EPSRC/UKRI TAS Hub — £147,414 (2022–23)

• University of Sheffield/Research England — £17,000 (2022)

• ESRC — £443,000 (Living Life to the Fullest, 2017–20)

• ESRC — £425,000 (Big Society, 2013–15)

• ESRC — £255,000 (Does Every Child Matter, 2008–10)

• Prime Minister’s Initiative 2/DIUS — £40,000 (2008–10)

• ESRC — £300,000 (Parents, Professionals and Disabled Babies, 2003–06)

• ESRC — £85,000 (Self-advocacy, 1998–2001)

If you also count the European Social Fund grant (£425,000, “Jobs not Charity,” 2003–05) — EU public funds rather than UK taxpayer money directly, but publicly-sourced — that brings it to £2,868,528.

Then there’s:

• Leverhulme Trust — £489,867

• Wellcome Trust (WAARC) — £1,007,109

• Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award — £2.9m

• SCOPE — £51,500

• BAAF — £8,500

I wonder if Goodley’s taxpayer-funded projects make any more sense than the sentence “Embracing disability as a deeply intellectual source of authority can help us redefine and unpack how we live and work together differently in the university”.

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI Global), “an independent, global affairs think tank”, received £40,303,180 from taxpayers between 2021-25.

So I’m sure you will be delighted to know it held a “Wellness” session earlier this month - posting about it on Instagram stories:

Read more

All of these are current studies subsidised by the UK Research and Innovation via its nine research councils:

EDI+ Research And Innovation Network+ For Equality, Diversity And Inclusion In The Energy Research Community (Durham University)
Funded Value: £1,006,945
Funded Period: Oct 22 - Jan 27
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
“The vision for the EDI+ network is to acknowledge and address key challenges and equip a cohort of researchers and their organisations to make lasting changes towards a diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible research community. This will have impact beyond the academy and set a precedent, offering the means to tailor EDI action among the diverse organisations participating in energy research. It garners the best of scientific and social science evidence and critical approaches from the humanities to put EDI challenges in appropriate perspectives and make them available for action.”

EDICa - Equality Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (Heriot-Watt University)
Funded Value: £3,676,371
Funded Period: Jan 23 - Dec 26
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
“To achieve global excellence in research and innovation, the research workforce must bring a diversity of experiences, expertise and ideas which necessitates the change of the cultures and structures which exclude marginalised researchers in order to meet UKRI's UK-wide talent programme. Our vision for the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (EDICa) is to advance the creation of inclusive research cultures enabling diverse researchers to access and thrive in careers across the research and innovation (R&I) systems. EDICa will advance understanding of the lived experiences of marginalized researchers, creating the hope and possibility of a research career for those traditionally excluded while imagining a different research world which embeds equity.”

Read more

As many readers will know, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the taxpayer-funded quango that spends “£9 billion of public money” annually on academia. This includes awarding £3.6 million to an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) caucus that Professor Jason Arday is still listed as a co-investigator on.

Understandably, there are lots of discussions around Arday at the moment and how this diversity poster boy rose to such towering success. It makes sense when you see the extreme extent to which UKRI pushes EDI in all its activities, bearing in mind that the UKRI isn’t the only taxpayer-funded body to fund academia - so this is a snapshot of an even bigger picture!

Read more

Today I can reveal that Arday is listed as a co-investigator on two more studies funded by taxpayers totalling £4,412,501 - in addition to Arday being a co-investigator on an EDI caucus that received £3,676,371 from taxpayers:

Read more

Today I can reveal that Professor Jason Arday is listed as a co-investigator on an EDI caucus that received £3,676,371 from taxpayers via the UKRI and British Academy. It is is not known if Arday is still part of the caucus, although…

Read more

On Tuesday I gave 10 examples of taxpayer-funded studies to show how Cambridge University has lost the plot.

Today I’ve got even more examples (two are taxpayer-funded; others are unnamed or funded through trusts, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), this time from Cambridge’s Centre for Gender Studies - which is as woke as it sounds. Below are 10 PhDs from the Centre, all but one currently taking place.

Do let me know in the comments if you know what any of the following means:

Unsexed beings: constructing gender, humanness, and agency through the use of the word “unsex” in Late Modern British society and writing

In Her Own Words: A Study of Women’s Voices in Contemporary White Supremacy and Far-Right Online Hate

Legal Mobilization by Black Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer (LBQ) Womxn in Kenya and South Africa

Funding Source: Gaitho is a “Gates International Scholar” - meaning the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation subsidises her critical studies.

Exploring gendered embodiment in transgender and gender-diverse adolescents at the intersection of exercise and eating behaviours, social inclusion, and mental health: Towards a desire-centred approach in paediatric gender-affirming healthcare and research

Funding Source: Also a Gates Scholar.

Codes of Life, Codes of Death: Tracing the (Im)possibility of Trans Lives in Algorithmic Assemblages

Funding Source: Cambridge Trust International Scholar.

Queer Cultural Memory in Literature, Film and Television since 1999

Funding Source: Taxpayer-funded via the Arts and Humanities Research Centre.

Unsettling Carceral Landscapes of Extraction: An Abolitionist Feminist Analysis of Logging Infrastructure at Ada’isx/Fairy Creek

Funding Source: Taxpayer-funded via the Economic and Social Research Council.

PANIC ATTACK: Anxious Futurity, Embodiment, and Disorder in Contemporary Biopolitical Security Politics

The Sexually Sociological: Gay Masculinity, Intimacy and the (Un)queer State

Previous PhD students have touched on similar areas, such as:

Gendered bodies: institutions, sex binarism, and the experiences of gender minority youth within health and education systems

I’m thinking of submitting my own thesis: Gendered Fannies: Deconstructing the queerness of gynaecological discourse around patatas bravas (because I fancy a trip abroad).

What do you think?

Almost every day there’s a new (often comical) story about Jason Arday, “the youngest black person ever appointed to a professorship at the University of Cambridge”, who has been accused of plagiarism and making outlandish claims about his life (such as that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days and appeared on the TV show Seven Up, which aired decades before he was born).

The debacle ultimately raises questions about academic standards at the University of Cambridge. It’s not only Arday’s alleged plagiarism, but the utter gobbledygook present in his work, which this elite university is clearly not immune to (as you will soon see). A year before he was appointed to Professor of Sociology of Education at Cambridge, he published Covid-19 and higher education: The Times They Are A’Changin, whose abstract reads:

With research and data from 16 countries and 5 continents, these articles explore the far-reaching impact of Covid-19 on higher education globally; accompanied also by a particular thread around lived experience, especially centring the voices of minoritised or marginalised members of the staff and student community. This is especially valuable given that understanding other countries’ successful strategies in handling the pandemic can forge global solidarity and collective growth.

Then there was his 2018 publication Dismantling power and privilege through reflexivity: negotiating normative Whiteness, the Eurocentric curriculum and racial micro-aggressions within the Academy. Who even needs to plagiarise when you have all these woke buzzwords available? Sadly none of this is unusual in academia, where sociological gobbledygook has become the norm.

It’s no wonder that when Dr Julian Huppert, Director of the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College Cambridge, advertised “three Research Fellowships” on X yesterday, he received an avalanche of sarcastic comments from those jaded with the Arday affair - and general woke-academia.

Burnside (one of the best accounts on X, in my view) replied:

“I invented underwater breathing, critical race theory and have just finished a doctoral thesis on the impact of hetronormative cultural biases on the career of Dianne Abbott. I am an expert at typos, misanthropy and braid weaving. I once ran 100 metres in 35 seconds.”

PaulSTEandM replied:

“I'm a queer straight white man of colour. My thesis is on my female neurodivergent intersection with cishet axis of oppression. I've already had an offer from Oxford, if you guarantee me a professorship I might be interested.”

Both are very funny - because they sound like real Cambridge University studies.

Don’t just take my word for it. I have rounded up 10 examples of studies that have recently taken place at the university - all paid for by YOU, the taxpayer:

Decolonising STEM and geography education in secondary schools: exploring educators’ agency and curriculum-making across England and Scotland
Funded Value: £247,268
Funded Period: Dec 25 - May 28
“Recently, drawing on the field of Decolonial Studies, scholars and educators have been investigating the impact of colonial histories on curriculum, higher education experiences, and teacher education both in formerly colonised communities and in the former colonial powers, including the UK. However, despite some initiatives linked to teacher education in England and Scotland, fewer studies exist which explore schoolteachers’ and teacher educators’ agentic experiences of decolonial curriculum-making in this former colonial power, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and geography school-subjects. This is despite increasing scholarship emerging from formerly colonised communities such as the USA and Brazil which underline the importance of decolonial curriculum-making in these subject areas due to their own colonial entanglements and legacies around: scientific racism, health inequalities and medical mistrust, over-exploitation of natural resources, environmental racism, data colonialism, algorithmic biases and profiling, etc.”

Mongolian Cosmopolitical Heritage: Tracing Divergent Healing Practices Across the Mongolian-Chinese Border
Funded Value: £818,476
Funded Period: Mar 20 - Feb 25
“The research will revolve around integrated, comparative analysis of healing practices at two key field sites within the Mongolian cultural region, selected for their divergent politico-economic contexts that impact healing practices: Tongliao municipality in China’s IMAR and Mongolia, with a focus on Ulaanbaatar. The localized nuances in healing practices and everyday perceptions of them require sustained, long-term research afforded by ethnography. Fieldwork will include participant observation, semi-structured interview and patient/client survey, targeting patients, practitioners, healing techniques and inter-organizational and institutional relations among practitioner groups, clinics, and governmental institutions such as the Ministry of Public Health and local cadres. Photographic and film documentation will focus on healing techniques with a comparative aim set in historical context.”

Read more

Yesterday the BBC reported that “The Jodrell Bank Observatory, which has housed the UK's largest telescope for nearly 70 years, has lost its funding and could now close”.

It added that the “funding body, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) agency, said it had to focus investment on projects that deliver ‘the greatest long-term impact’.”

The UKRI is a quango I write about a lot. It has a huge budget - £8.8 billion for 2025/26 - which it distributes through its nine research councils, as well as other channels such as the Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLF).

The issue is that, while the UKRI does fund sensible things, it pours far too much money into its more frivolous wings, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which awarded £841,830 and £668,244 to research projects The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000 and Pregnant Men: An International Exploration of Trans Male Experiences and Practices of Reproduction, respectively.

The UKRI FLF isn’t good either - though it doesn’t count as a research council - as you will soon see. It’s another example of money being wasted.

Meanwhile the UKRI has decided the Observatory’s £2.8 million annual budget is too much. But wait until you see today’s examples of what the UKRI chucks money at, including studies that have nothing to do with the UK.

Without further ado:

• Ending Extreme Poverty through Social Protection? Experimental Evidence from 10-year Nationwide Randomised Cash Transfers in Rwanda and Malawi - £3,304,309 (Nov 24 - Nov 28) UKRI FLF

• The Digital Good Network: exploring equity, sustainability and resilience in people’s relationships with and through digital technologies - £3,303,856 (Nov 22 - Oct 27) ESRC

• Co-Creating Asset and Place-Based Approaches to Tackling Refugee and Migrant Health Exclusion - £2,124,555 (Feb 24 - Apr 27) AHRC

• Multilingualism, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities of Linguistic Practice and Policy - £2,119,802 (Sept 23 - Sept 27) ESRC

• Nation of Refuge - £2,091,892 (Sept 25 - Sept 29) UKRI FLF

• Building Desirable and Resilient Public Media Futures: Establishing the Centre for Public Values, Technology & Society - £1,717,002 (Mar 24 - Mar 28) UKRI FLF

• Transforming LGBTIQ+ Asylum Policies: A Multi-Country Cross-Sectoral Approach to Research, Policy, and Advocacy - £1,555,506 (Feb 26 - Feb 30) UKRI FLF

• Co-Producing EDI Interventions for Virtual Production - £1,275,804 (Dec 24 - Nov 28) AHRC

• How can we create a more just society with A.I.? - £1,268,109 (Jul 22 - Jul 26) UKRI FLF

• Inclusive Histories - £1,254,813 (Sept 24 - Sept 27) AHRC

• Gender, Generation and Climate Change (GENERATE): Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate Resilient Cities in Uganda and Myanmar - £1,189,986 (Apr 19 - Nov 26) UKRI FLF

• Defining Ethnomusicological Action Research through the regeneration of folk singing in England - £1,188,320 (Feb 22 - Feb 27) UKRI FLF

• The Cultural Legacies of the British Empire: Classical Music’s Colonial History (1750-1900) - £1,183,769 (May 24 - May 29) UKRI FLF

• Decolonising Justice: Vernacular Justice Cultures Beyond the Liberal Order - £1,164,119 (Nov 25 - Nov 29) UKRI FLF

• The Abundance Project: Enhancing Cultural & Green Inclusion in Social Prescribing in Southwest London to Address Ethnic Inequalities in Mental Health - £1,056,814 (Feb 24 - Jul 27) AHRC

• Resettling the Colonial Lens: Photography and the (re)making of Malaysia’s New Villages - £1,014,696 (Jan 25 - Dec 27) AHRC

• Co-Producing Integrated Place-Based Supports to Enable Healthy Ageing-In-Place for Roma Communities - £1,007,541 (Feb 24 - Jan 27) AHRC

• The Beacon Project: Using Biodiversity and Energy justice to resolve Conflicts between Sustainable Development Goals - £963,901 (Aug 20 - Sept 26) UKRI FLF

• Decolonising Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Higher Education: Interventions in Theory, Policy and Practice - £939,368 (Mar 22 - Aug 26) UKRI FLF

• Communication and Creativity: An Arts-Based Study Focusing on Marginalised East African Communities in Kenya, Uganda and the United Kingdom - £847,202 (Dec 23 - Jul 27) AHRC

• The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000 - £841,830 (Nov 23 - Oct 27) AHRC

• (MIS)TRANSLATING DECEIT: DISINFORMATION AS A TRANSLINGUAL, DISCURSIVE DYNAMIC - £839,794 (Nov 23 - Apr 27) AHRC

• The Uganda Film Unit Archive: Digitisation, Research and Restitution - £822,621 (Sept 25 - Sept 28) AHRC

• Gypsies Forging Sustainable Futures: Representing Romani Environmental Knowledge and Practices Through Traditional Metal Artwork and Dance - £810,703 (Apr 24 - Apr 27) AHRC

• Decolonising the Museum: Digital Repatriation of the Gaidinliu Collection from the UK to India (DiMuse) - £805,769 (Nov 22 - Oct 26) AHRC

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Southwark Council funded a “Queer Ecology” event, I can reveal to readers.

Taking place last Friday, the “ecology walk and improvisation-based movement session” offered LGBTQI+ people the chance to “pause with plants and local wildlife, uncovering the queer histories embedded in ecologies around us.”

“Whilst we practise sensing, feeling and moving as and with these queerly fugitive plant bodies, we will also consider what we might offer in return”, reads the description for Queer Ecology: noticing, feeling, moving, which was hosted by the The Siobhan Davies Dance Company.

It generously welcomed “those with intersectional and emerging queer life experiences which may situate them against normative expectations (whether this is through racialisation, disability, class and more).”

You can find all sorts of other crazy sentences on the event listing:

The Siobhan Davies Dance Company - which put on four Pride events in total, including a “Queer Takeover” - was one of 15 recipients of Southwark’s Pride fund 2026, which saw £30,000 split between each winner.

Other taxpayer-funded events included:

• A Pride celebration creative workshop at Art Block for local children at the South London Gallery;

• Queer Minds Trans Care Day, hosted by South East London Mind; and

• Queer Speech Karaoke for young people and families and a later 18+ version for older groups, hosted by This is Arcade CIC.

Meanwhile Southwark Council recently announced it has a funding gap of around £100 MILLION:

Is it any wonder when it’s spending money on the exploration of “queerly fugitive plant bodies”?!

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Over the last couple of weeks, Southwark Council has been introducing people to its Executive Members on Instagram - and it ain’t pretty.

In the last local elections, Southwark ended up with no party majority and is now run by 29 Labour councillors, 22 Greens and 12 Liberal Democrats, with the council being led by a Green.

What’s interesting is the increasingly ridiculous titles councillors are now given, including the “Executive Member for Inclusive Economy, Equalities and Democracy” and “Executive Member for Council Co-ordination and Climate”.

Then we get to the biographies of these people, who list Palestine activism, going to raves and supporting the Latin American community as interests (what happened to representing England and the UK?! Ya know, the country we live in???).

According to Southwark’s website, councillors get an allowance of £15,060, with those who take on extra roles entitled to a “Special Responsibility Allowance”, which can be anything from “£3,453 for roles including deputy leader of the opposition, to £62,365 which is paid to the Leader of the Council.” There are 63 councillors in total.

Anyway, here’s the fabulous team! (I’ve singled out the most striking examples but you can find the full list here and here). Genuinely, I didn’t know which party each councillor represented when I chose my examples from Instagram, but surprise surprise, the nutty ones are mostly Green!

Councillor Eloise Waldon-Day, Executive Member for Council Co-ordination and Climate (Green Party)

“I’ve spent my career working on women’s rights and climate policy, and I’ve been a climate activist in Southwark for many years.

“I believe tackling the climate crisis should make everyday life better too - with cleaner air, warmer homes, more green space, and stronger protection from heat and flooding. We need to cut the emissions driving climate breakdown while helping our communities adapt to the impacts we’re already seeing.”

Councillor James McAsh: Leader of Southwark Council (Green)

“Having been the councillor for Goose Green, in East Dulwich, since 2018, I am now also the first ever Green Leader of Southwark Council.

“Previously, I spent ten years as a primary school teacher in Brixton, and as an active trade unionist.”

Southwark Green Party posted this image about their leader on Instagram:

Councillor George Grime, Deputy Executive Member for Tenant and Leaseholder Services (Green)

“I love Southwark - where I’ve lived for 46 years. I retired recently from a professional career in social housing, mostly in Southwark, and I’m passionate about the contribution that well-managed Council housing can make to people’s lives - providing security, underpinning community, and helping our children to thrive.

“I’m a member of the UVW trade union, support the cause of the Palestinians and aim to play a part in defeating the politics of division and hate being promoted by the far right.”

Councillor Lina Usma, Deputy Executive Member for Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector (Liberal Democrats)

“Originally from Colombia and living in the UK since 1996, I’ve spent many years championing our diverse communities. Through London’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, I’ve supported the Latin American community and have worked closely with the voluntary and community sector (VCS).

“I am passionate about strengthening Southwark’s VCS, ensuring local businesses and organisations have the support they need to help residents, reduce inequalities and build stronger communities.”

Councillor Victor Chamberlain: Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Planning, Infrastructure and Wellbeing (Liberal Democrats)

“I’ve been a councillor since 2018, proudly serving the residents of Borough and Bankside - the area I call home.

“My professional background is in the NHS, affordable housing and major regeneration projects.

I’m also Chair of Pride in Southwark and champion LGBTQ+ rights within the council.”

Councillor Janice White, Deputy Executive Member for Culture (Green)

“I represent Dulwich Hill ward, and have lived in Southwark for 30 years. I am proud to run a local communications business working with arts and culture organisations, helping them connect with people and tell their stories.

“As Deputy Executive Member for Culture, I am focused on supporting Southwark’s arts and culture sector to thrive, especially in the face of rising costs and ongoing challenges. I firmly believe every resident has the right to experience great culture, and that our borough’s diversity is also its cultural strength.”

Councillor Suzanne Wise, Deputy Executive Member for Adult Services (Green)

“I have worked in the corporate world for most of my career, often as the first and only woman in the boardroom, and this has fuelled a passion for diversity and inclusion. I have recently retired from that career, and I use all my time and energy to make the world greener, more affordable and fairer.

“As well as my council role I chair a London environmental charity that works to protect and enhance our precious green spaces, and I can be found in our parks often. I am currently halfway through walking London’s Capital Ring.”

Councillor Vanessa Threadgold: Executive Member for Parks and Recreation (Green)

“I am proud to have called Southwark home for 14 years - I am passionate about the green spaces within it and people feeling connected ownership to the place in which they live.

“Previously I founded Cactus City Studio, a feminist music organisation and living wage employer, and worked in resolving disputes at the financial ombudsman. I teach Pilates, am an advocate for functional fitness, and have long been a friend of local parks. I also enjoy raves and taking excellent photographs.”

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Earlier this month Angela Rayner delivered the keynote speech at the 40th anniversary of the New Economics Foundation, where she “spoke about the power of devolution.” In a tweet, she wrote “After forty years, NEF’s mission may be unfinished. But it is more vital than ever.”

Another MP to attend was Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is being talked about as the economic mastermind behind Andy Burnham and was once the Chief Executive of the NEF. Fahnbulleh posted that it was “Fantastic to celebrate 40 years of NEF and its huge contribution to economic thinking & progressive ideas.”

It’s pretty obvious from these endorsements alone that the NEF is a big player in left-wing circles, but there’s also ample proof on its website. For instance, one of the think tank’s missions is a “fast and fair transition to a green economy through a deep and equitable transformation to address the climate crisis” and in a post titled “Share the wealth”, it has written about why “richest few are taking too much”. Its website is littered with more ideological nonsense.

With that being said, I wonder why taxpayers are expected to fund the NEF year by year? (which received £379,500 from taxpayers between 2021-25). Especially when (as I will show in this article), right-wing think tanks do not get the same government income.

Shockingly, it’s far from the first left-wing think tank to receive government funding. Other examples (and this is just a small sample) are:

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Today it’s been announced that the Government will tax interest on cash held in stocks and shares ISAs.

Meanwhile it continues to haemorrhage money on the charity sector.

Case in point: I have calculated the Government spending on just 28 asylum and migration charities over the last five tax years, and the total comes to

£701,156,359!

Bear in mind there are over 170,000 charities registered on the Charity Commission for England and Wales, alone, so the figure could get much, much higher.

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