What would DOGE UK look like?
Some ideas for what we should cut (that would save us A LOT of money)
Entities we should completely defund…
Arts Council England (ACE) - £445m per year
Funds the likes of Soho Theatre (£1,843,746, 2023-2026), which has put on shows such as 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals, Patti Harrison: My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE and a comedy show where “White audience members are encouraged to check their privilege at the door”. Promotes racial segregation via awarding £750,000 (2023-26) to "Devon’s first Global Majority theatre company" and subsidised the "world's premier green, autistic drag queen”. In order to be considered for funding, ACE asks artists to show how they will embed DEI and environmental responsibility into their work, thus financially incentivising woke.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) - £207m (2022-25)
This is the body that gave us The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000 (£841,830), Understanding Displacement Aesthetics and Creating Change in the Art Gallery for Refugees, Migrants and Host Communities (£785,359), Perverse Collections: Building Europe's Queer and Trans Archives (£136,909), Milking it: colonialism, heritage and everyday engagement with dairy (£67,480), and much much more. Definitely the worst council run by the UK Research and Innovation, a quango given £8.8 billion a year by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (aka taxpayers’ money).
The British Academy - £274m (2019-23)
“The UK”s national academy for the humanities and social sciences”, responsible for projects such as Plant trees, save Lahore": afforestation as hope and political project in Pakistan (£370,589), At the Cold War’s Margins: New Theory of Indian Women's Pacifist Thought (£348,706) and awarding £7.2m to international professors, as well as “childcare support” and the ability to work in their “home institution overseas”. One international student heading to the UK (via another British Academy programme, where £2.8m funding was handed out) 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 British Council - £1,250.37m
Receives INSANE amounts and spends it on things including Accra Indie Filmfest in Ghana, a “Climate Connection newsletter” and “Pakistan’s first-ever Boiler Room broadcast” with a DJ. As with The British Academy’s obscure international projects, this is all meant to be about “soft power” but just makes us look like mugs.
The Wellcome Trust - £108.66m
Another ridiculously expensive institution, whose funding many Brits can’t even apply for, eg. the “Wellcome Accelerator Awards”:
Other things…
The UK Research and Innovation (mentioned above re AHRC) needs a really good clean up. Its other subsidiaries and a few examples of projects include:
The Economic and Social Research Council - Pregnant Men: An Exploration of Trans Male Experiences and Practices of Reproduction (£668,244 total), and PhDs in Intersectional politics of queer activism and feminism in Nigeria and Decolonising international child protection in an era of climate crisis,
Future Leaders Fellowships - FemIDEAS: Decolonising Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education (£939,368) and a study “decolonising folk music” to address its “white centricity” (£1,485,400)
Strategic Priorities Fund - funded the University of Arts London’s Decolonising Arts Institute (£2,947,162).
We should cut/ stop funding international students
Brits are often told that international students are the only thing keeping universities alive. Actually, we fund a huge number of them, including a (now graduated) French doctor in “black worldmaking practices in contemporary France”, a Portuguese professor living in Sweden (the gay porn professor) and an Indian researcher investigating Early years in Scotland: An exploration of "race", class, gender and coloniality in child-centred learning within home educating communities of colour”. More here.
No more taxpayer funding for charities
Most taxpayers won’t even know that we are charged for most charities - never mind the staggering amounts involved. Charities should run on voluntary contributions, not least because Brits are a very charitable nation! At present there is apparently little oversight of this bloated industry. Case in point, under the past Conservative government, money was wasted on an LGBT+ hate crime charity that runs “Rainbow Kayaking” sessions (£627,710 since 2019) and The Vagina Museum (£113,220, 2020-22), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
Plus…
Many “charities” are effectively left-wing pressure groups - some much more militant in their activism than others - for instance:
We should proscribe some charities/ foundations
Eg. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, which funds projects including Gendered Intelligence, the Right to Remain (“Building knowledge, radical solidarity and power for migration justice”) and The Black Curriculum. Shockingly, this divisive charity - which lobbies for open borders - was given just under £1.4 million in taxpayer funding between 2020-23, and there are plenty more like it.
The National Institute for Health and Social Care Research needs looking at:
We should scrap All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs):
An inquiry in 2023 by the Committee on Standards concluded:
The expert evidence we have received to our inquiry shows that the risk of improper access and influence by hostile foreign actors through APPGs is real, though difficult to measure. There is also evidence that this risk has already materialised.
We stand by these conclusions from our initial report: APPGs are a valuable part of how Parliament does its work; but there remains a significant risk of improper access and influence by commercial entities or by hostile foreign actors, through APPGs.
So why on earth do we still have these?!
They give huge numbers of people, and their funders, access to Parliament. We also have APPGs titled “Afrikan Reparations”, “Climate Change” and “The National Trust” (which has become incredibly woke).
To see EVEN more things we need to cut, here’s a list of hundreds of quangos/ bodies linked to Parliament. We should at the very least scrap: The Academy for Social Justice, Active Travel England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland & Wales, British Film Institute, Chevening Scholarship Programme (more taxpayers’ money for international students), Migration Advisory Committee and the (very woke) Museum of the Home.
It goes without saying that the BBC, Civil Service, councils, the NHS (especially EDI roles) and the Climate Change Committee need serious reviews and “gutting out”.
Afueraaaaa!
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