One might even say the Sun makes a mockery of its own article by ending on such a sensible note.
This week, the Sun dug deep into its culture war crusade, publishing an exposé about so-called “woke waste,” taxpayer money allegedly squandered on research into “whiteness” and the protection of women accused of witchcraft.
According to its melodramatic article, £16.5 million is being “funnelled” into 21 “woke” projects at UK universities.
Among the supposedly scandalous studies singled out was £85,000 spent on a Newcastle University project entitled Combating Witchcraft-Related Violence Through Song, which investigates how music can support elderly women in South Africa who face violence after being labelled “witches,” a fate often tied to misogyny and ageism. Clearly, supporting marginalised women in the Global South is beyond the Sun’s understanding of public value.
Equally shocking, the paper suggests, is over £1 million allocated to a University of Nottingham project on decolonising colonial-era photography from British Malaya, and £246,000 to a Sheffield University app exploring how monuments in Chile reflect and perpetuate historical notions of “whiteness.” The Sun derides this as “woke waste”, conveniently ignoring how such research develops critical understanding of systemic racism and the legacies of empire.
Also included in the hit list is £783,000 for a Queen Mary University project on “military decarbonisation,” because reducing the environmental footprint of defence, apparently, is too radical. And £379,000 for a Birkbeck College study on children’s craft-making practices in West Africa.
All of this was “uncovered” by DOGE UK founder Charlotte Gill, who said taxpayers will be “fuming” to see where their cash goes, though the article doesn’t include any “fuming” taxpayers’ views.
“Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg, with thousands of similar taxpayer-funded grants being awarded under the UKRI – never mind the vast sums spent on the rest of the public sector,” she said:
As the Telegraph keenly reported earlier this year, Charlotte Gill is an investigative journalist who founded and runs Woke Waste, a website that examines taxpayer funded grants to charities and institutions. She describes herself on X as running ‘DOGE UK’, DOGE being the Department of Government Efficiency in Trump’s administration, formerly run by X owner Elon Musk.
Gill then takes aim at the Arts Council, trotting out Soho Theatre’s support for productions like 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals as yet more evidence of “woke madness.”
At least the Sun did offer some semblance of balance, all but a token gesture, by including a brief quote from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which funds the projects in question. UKRI explains that these grants are peer-reviewed and designed to tackle “global challenges in a complex and interconnected world.”
“Projects are prioritised for funding through independent expert peer review, as set out in the Higher Education and Research Act.”
That final paragraph, quoting UKRI’s defence of international research and expert-led funding decisions, rather undermines the entire outraged narrative. One might even say the Sun makes a mockery of its own article by ending on such a sensible note.
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