February 22, 2025 - 12:00pm
Elon Musk may be winding up half of America with his incessant and inflammatory tweets, and his powerful presence in the Trump White House. But in Britain, his drive to root out waste in the federal government is inspiring a number of conservatives to campaign for something similar.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unit has sprouted “an army of British copycats” according to Politico, with various UK Right-wingers launching their own crusades against government waste. “They’ve been highlighting British government contracts, taking shots at perceived state over-reach,” it reports, adding that some are “weaponising publicly available information.”
It’s an easy case to make, particularly from Opposition — few will go out to defend government waste, and those that try will make a fool of themselves. Simply shine your searchlight in enough dark corners of the state and you’re bound to find some government-funded arty-farty project with an abstract, liberal-sounding name to serve as an unjustifiable exemplar that gives the story legs.
This is nothing new. The Right has campaigned against government waste and red tape for decades, even though they have little to show for it in practice. Just look at the Tories: after 14 years in power, government spending is higher than ever, with taxes approaching postwar highs.
The only new feature of this anti-waste movement is the motive. The activists behind it seem less driven by government efficiency as a conservative end in itself, animated instead by what they see as a new front in the culture war. Now, wasteful government spending has been explicitly given a “woke” identity, to energise activists.
Attaching a liberal label to government largesse will be an effective campaigning tool, but there is a danger here for the young British right behind the campaigns copy and pasted from the US. The merging of “terminally online” Right-wing culture between Britain and America, accelerated by Musk’s X platform, has resulted in British political activists aping the language of the US Right. DOGE-admirers should be wary of just how culturally detached they can appear to their fellow “NPC” citizens, for whom there doesn’t seem to be much empathy or respect.
Musk’s DOGE has promised to take a chainsaw to US federal government spending. But it is unclear that UK activists are really prepared to face the electorate wielding a chainsaw, ready to slice through some of the real big ticket items of government spending like the NHS, schools or defence. A couple of million pounds in grants to “woke” causes here or there is small fry compared to the vast scale of government expenditure on health, or pensions. Recognising this, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “You can try and make services more efficient, or you can just stop doing things, which is what they’ve done in Argentina, which is the ‘Afuera’ model, as I call it. I think that’s likely to be much more effective.” Good luck communicating to the voters where the axe will fall, with public services already crumbling.
But for now, the movement is having fun, and seems almost relieved to be unburdened of the expectation of actually delivering — safe in the playful titillation of nudge-nudge wink-wink nomenclature, exemplified by the Spectator’s Project Against Frivolous Funding (SPAFF). This is Opposition politics by smirk and shitpost.
The British Right has jumped on board because it doesn’t require the hard, introspective and complicated thinking of what went wrong in government — and because it’s a template that already exists in the US, ready to copy. Jumping from ideology to ideology was one of the things that did for the Conservatives and their legacy in the last government. Why will this latest project prove any different?
Don’t worry: eventually you’ll run out of money, and then the programs will cut themselves.
The cuts in the UK have already started – in the KoolKutz ‘barbers shops’.
We have yet to see how well the US DOGE will succeed and can then learn the lessons of their successes and failures.
There are certainly plenty of areas where cuts can be made or the state can step back from being the primary provider. Hospitals, asylums, schools and other services all existed before the State nationalised them. Even armed forces have been provided by mercenaries in some places in the past.
If you leave people with more of their own money they can spend it on the services that they actually want from the most effective providers rather than being forced to pay without any effective choice. The poor received relief and did not starve in the streets of England in the past before the Welfare State was constructed. It was not a dystopian dog eat dog world nor is it the case in other countries that do not levy high taxes of their citizens to pay for the sort of bureaucratic institutions we support.
I’m in the firm belief the more the government gets out of the way, takes less of their money, the more successful a country will be
We saw that with Brexit, where the UK jumped from the 7th to the worlds 4th largest exporter, was that down to some policy by the Tories, doubt it. They where unlike Labour just not as active in trying to mess up people’s lives
Labour should sit back, have a holiday, do nothing, let the people get the country out of the mess. But they don’t trust the people, they think contrary to all evidence they are smarter than the people
This plainly doesn’t work in several industries healthcare being one. The US healthcare system is an absolute embarassment and whatever the state of the NHS ours is better than that.
Why do people persist in suggesting the US healthcare is the only alternative to our National Health system? Continental insurance based systems seem to work better as do other systems available throughout the world. No one wants to copy our system any more than they want to adopt the US system.
In the decade leading up to the pandemic the Germans spent triple the amount the UK did on hospital capacity, which goes a long way to explaining why they don’t have the backlogs of the NHS.
They also pay for GP visits and other parts of healthcare that is free in Britain which leaves the budget less stretched.
Nobody is denying the NHS needs reform, but with an ageing population and more advanced medicine the healthcare sector is always going to require more money than it did for previous generations. At some point a conversation needs to be had, either we ration what is available on the NHS or start putting more money into it
But they aren’t private systems. They are public systems JB. They also cost more as proportion of GDP than UK equivalent. (There is a debate here about what we can learn from the continental systems but it’s not quite the point you’re making)
Really? From what I’ve read at Unherd the health care in England is far worse than in the US.
If only there were other models of health care to be found in the 27 countries of the EU, the six non members, or Australia. If only it wasn’t just the NHS or the US. No, I’m thinking like a mad person again.
Let’s put aside for a mo the economics and efficiency debate between what you’d switch from public to private (although Thames Water?) – the author makes the point how does the Right get elected on such a package? The Red wall voter won’t be able to afford private health insurance so how you selling that?
And as regards the ‘poor didn’t starve’ – they did. You need a social history lesson. There has been ‘public relief’ since Elizabethan times. It just varied in mechanism and how much one blamed the poor for their position.
Where you’d take us is the inequality one sees in 3rd World – there are exceptionally rich sections in cities such as Rio, Lagos, Mumbai etc ringed by poverty stricken barrios and slums. That’s where we’d be without the State.
And you’d drive towards that and just increase the gated areas for the v Rich. That’s not winning you many votes, although of course as the v Rich control the media and pit the increasing number of relative poor against one another it’s a not impossible outcome.
The poor developed mutual insurance, a non profit making sector, filled the domestic banks with their earnings. From 1911 there were old age pensions. Charity hospitals meant that everyone could find treatment. Each hospital had an almoner to help the poor.
And it depends on the question. Do you want high taxes and dysfunctional public services , that is the real question.
> The Right has campaigned against government waste and red tape for decades, even though they have little to show for it in practice. Just look at the Tories: after 14 years in power
Sorry what exactly was conservative about the Tories? Was it the open border policy of importing everyone they could in, and then providing for all their needs? Was it the unprecedented explosion of Transgender activism? Oh I know it must’ve been the continued push of Net Zero. That must’ve been what made them conservative.
The tories were as conservative as the EU is democratic.
Public support for de-funding Net Zero, Chagos, immigration costs, benefits excesses, Civil Service numbers, public sector pensions etc. would be highly popular – and lucrative. No need whatsoever to cut education or NHS spending if you get rid of the dumb stuff. Sort out the above,then follow up with DOGE afterwards.
All for cutting frivolous stuff. Who isn’t. But your list shows too much simpleton thinking on the Right. Net Zero actually favoured by majority even if the pace needs to slow; Chagos vast majority haven’t a clue about and it’s chattering classes issue – plus small beer; cutting immigration costs isn’t going to help reduce immigration either legal or illegal – build some holding centres by all means and reduce Hotel bills but that does require investment. As of course does reducing legal migration in many industries; civil service numbers can be reduced but need to think where – remember Brexit increased them as we made our State more bureaucratic in a number of specific depts; cutting pensions probably not going to help electorally and besides the younger public pension contributors aren’t going to get the packages the Baby Boomers did as rules changed already.
The problem is where cuts are poss and needed the sums remain much smaller than the yah-boo crowd need. So at some point the debate about what we can afford and how we manage that needs to become more mature.
Your posts show too much simpleton and not enough thinking.
Net Zero is only favoured, as no doubt “diversity”, tolerance, democracy, motherhood and apple pie as a vague intention, up until the point when it starts to bite hard – as of course it already is – on ordinary people’s living standards. The fact that politicians blatantly lied – ok let’s be charitable and say “convinced themselves” – that green power is going to be cheaper than fossil fuels in the near term may have deluded people as well. Claiming wind and solar power generation is cheaper but conveniently ignoring the very high costs and lack of capacity of electricity storage and the absolutely essential backup power, which obviously as a backup system is running at far less than full optimum efficiency.
But also, whatever people want, perhaps the country simply isn’t wealthy enough to provide. Rachel Reeves isn’t some nasty, Thatcherite although she seems to think it’s essential to cut spending and I think she doesn’t have any choice.
Your defence of our abysmal current bunch of politicians is just depressing. And effectively giving up a major strategic western naval base because judge gave an advisory opinion on these lines may possibly not much popular resonance (don’t these kind of “patriotic” issues of course did used to do so!) but nevertheless is an extremely important one. Way to go if you actually want China to dominate the world.
Agree that the nature and extent of cuts in these areas needs to be sensibly considered during implementation – but it’s not difficult to implement in an electorally harmless way.
I’m not sure why you think the Conservatives are right wing.
I find the talk of a DOGE like look at our own spending an exciting project.
Do we need the endless ‘rainbowing’ of EVERYTHING! From zebra crossings to NHS lanyards and worst still police cars.
The pointless renaming of streets. As if these changes will erase the history of the place.
And no. I do not accept the “but it’s only ££££s to do it”. Add all this pointless nonsense together and it will amount to a decent amount of money. Money that could be spent on actual change. Maybe a youth club that we are constantly told is required. Who knows, we might be able to actually fix a few pot holes in the roads!
Agree. Now we’ve saved a few peanuts and got as few cheers where we going next?
Why don’t you start with all the money spent on net zero? This is not an insignificant amount of money.
…and keep the Chagos Isles. Suddenly the public finances are rosy again.
Quite right. Paying someone to take a strategic asset off our hands is the policy choice of a mad man. Mauritius never owned the Chagos Islands whatever the views a bunch of foreign Judges might take.
If anyone is entitled to the Chagos Islands back it is the Chagosians. If we don’t want to retain the Islands pragmatically we should give the Chagos Islands to the US. They would not want a dowry as well.
£85m p.a defending the Falklands. Public finance cut perhaps?
On Chagos mind I agree – the deal negotiated by Tories was poor.
Sunak, I suppose. He was an anti- negotiator.
of course it would work, just not with the Tories or Labour, but why is it the expectation, they are the only choices, they are destined to govern the UK.
You want to ensure free speech in Universities, threaten them with pulling all funding, and not just a threat do it if they fail to comply
You want the Police to follow the law , actually do what they are tasked with ,sack Police commissioners , lose their pension, for those who forces do not comply
It’s actually very simple to get this institutions to follow the public will , but it’s requires a bit of gumption
People are simple creatures, if a Police commissioner continues to implement DEI and is faced drop it or keep their job and pension, that ideology goes out the window
We have had weak, stupid people governing the UK since the war. They have been unwilling to create the laws, implement existing laws and failed to understand the fundamental truth, they work for us, the Police Commissioners, the civil servants work for us, they do what the public demands
Yes, well…’they do what the public demands..’ Good – how do we know what the public demands? It turns out that the trad way to find out is to hold elections. Which we do, and then the elected lot take decisions more or less in line with their election promises. If they don’t, they get swapped for a different lot.
You have a different proposition- ‘Do what the public demands!’ Let’s have the details.
Implementing DEI, whatever the heck it means, may not cost v much at all. Youll note few actually mention quantified figures. And if you’ve a workforce shortage and need to attract from a greater pool of society yet have a reputation for being bias against minorities and women then perhaps it’s an ‘essential’ or you can’t provide the workforce needed? The point being the rationale sometimes for DEI is much more practical than the yah-boo twaddle batted about by the two ends of the spectrum. I’m ex RN and we can’t keep all our ships at Sea due to workforce problems.
And even if we cut the lot it’s generally peanuts.
No one who has seen active service in the armed forces would ever boast about it or discuss it with total strangers.
The Taxpayers Alliance just looked at the cost of DEI in the higher education sector. It’s not insignificant. Similar figures are available for the NHS. I don’t understand your complacency in the face of the cost of this waste. There’s also the Q of the negative and divisive impact of DEI, far more egregious than its costs. Perhaps you can give an example of a UK company that needs to expand its workforce but has a reputation for bias against minorities. We have laws against that in the UK. You’re using a strawman argument to defend the indefensible; not dissimilarly to the whining and crying Democrats across the pond.
we already have Doge in UK. It’s called the OBR. They’re just not doing their job. That’s the problem – if you hire bureaucrats to monitor other bureaucrats you just get more bureaucracy
I am a conservative who has no idea how to bring about a UK DOGE but I do know that the person who wrote this piece has very little idea of what conservatives really want. “Waste” is not the main issue here….not even close. The main issue is that the UK civil service is stuffed full of senior people whose main activity is subverting and frustrating any policy agendas that don’t accord with the Lefty groupthink they picked up in their Lefty undergraduate sheep-dip years. (Cutting immigration and deporting foreign criminals are examples most in the news but other examples are legion.) “Unsurprisingly, neither governmental bureaucracies and quangos nor other civil institutions keep statistics on the political leanings of their employees. But there are clues. Unherd columnist Peter Franklin reflecting on his own experience of working in two UK government departments comments: “How many of the civil servants that most closely serve this Conservative government are actually Leftwing? Well….I would say approximately all of them”. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/carry-on-governing
If a Trump-like regime did ever get its hands on power in the UK (not holding my breath on that one) one thing they could start with would be to ceremoniously tear up the BBC charter and tell it to go fend for its ultra-Lefty “impartial” self. Its 70-year strangehold on UK political discourse is perhaps the biggest reason why Britain is in the dismal mess it is in.
Cutting immigration and deporting foreign criminals are nothing to do with the civil service.
Immigration numbers and criteria are set by parliament, with the civil service simply following the system set for them.
Likewise deporting foreign criminals has be one difficult because of lawyers using the law as it currently stands, which again is the job of parliament to rectify
You do really do need to get yourself an education about how goverment policies either do or do not actually get implemented at the civil administrative stage. Watching Yes Minister would perhaps be a place to start. You are correct though about the Lefty lawfare ….I didn’t – for bevity – mention this in my comment but Yes Britain is run by lawyers and for lawyers…. whether those lawyers are in the civil administration, in its vast array of quangos or even in parliament itself
The civil service can only approve/deny immigrants based on the criteria set out by the government. Blame MPs, not the immigration staff.
Likewise if existing laws or preventing criminals being deported then it’s the job of Parliament to correct it, not the lawyers
I might have agreed wholeheartedly with your comment until I read about the astonishing immigration tribunal case decisions in the Telegraph recently. How is allowing a Gazan family into the country on a Ukraine scheme the fault of MPs? Or determining that a 20+ year old Sudanese illegal migrant is a child? (I agree laws need to be tighter and that the UK ought to leave the ECHR, but these are blatant cases of judges going out of their way to circumvent the law, surely?)
Alot of corporate lawyers make alot of money off the British state, much more than the human rights type.
Look at how much costing to chase down fraudulent Covid loans too.
You appear to believe it’s an either/or problem. Classic leftist arguing point.
The top Civil servants are virtually all private school. Perhaps we stop that and get a better leadership?
The Left has also long argued the Civil service too ‘conservative’. Blair even railed against it’s inertia. There is something in how government functions but it’s not quite the meme the Right extols. Most public servants endeavour to be neutral and highly professional.
The public service has been largely replaced by consultants. What you think of as a (socialist) state is actually crony capitalism.
It sounds as though you like waste, fraud, and abuse. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for anyone to find and stop them. If such a thing were to happen in Britain, it would be because people ignored your position and moved forward with this worthy project. I wish them Godspeed.
The elephant herd in the British room is immigration. Sustaining that craptastic nation killer requires all of the despot tool chest. A second herd of elephants would be the insanity passing for climate policy.
Sadly all mainstream parties are guilty of infantilising the public in encouraging the belief that the state can rely on colossal borrowing without consequences. I fear Reform aren’t much different in this regard. You have to look to challenger parties like Heritage or the SDP to hear any common sense espousal of fiscal prudence.
I ordered Sir Humphey Appleby to do something about cutting waste in Whitehall. He replied: “Yes, Minister.”
And stopped the Prime Minister’s tea and biscuits in retaliation!
This is a low-quality article by a low-quality author. I feel dumber for having read it.
I’m pleased to see in the comments, a healthy skepticism and cynicism toward the broad brush, condescending tone and gaslighting permeating this article. “Nothing to see here”! Even the headline, don’t even bother UK! Oh please do.
Much like virtually all mainstream media in the United States, this article conveniently fails to mention any real details of actual findings and creates perceived doubt (oh it’s just that darn Trump and Elon again! Cue TDS), breezily brushes past the fraud and corruption that was uncovered, still being exposed, specifically with regards to USAID, funded by US taxpayers, with no knowledge or oversight and little paper trail. Not AID, but a slush fund for the CIA and the globalists Marxists that have hijacked the democrat party.
All of which is alarming, implicates and exposes a coordinated agenda of wide-scale global propaganda, perception control and manipulation, funding for terrorist organizations, throughout the globe, election meddling in multiple countries, Antifa and all the other riots and discord that have spontaneously appeared on cue, gender ideology forced into traditional cultures, in every corner of the world.
The baddies were so damn lazy, arrogant and cavalier with their overt use of this money, sure they would never get caught, they literally identified these ventures by name.
Such as paying $650 million to 6,000 different global media outlets, including BBC and Politico, and $9 million to Reuters for a little project literally called “wide scale social deception”.
Funding of $59 million to Wuhan virology lab in 2019…it goes on and on. Assuming the money didn’t just go right back in their pockets. Weird, creepy psychological CIA deep state stuff, that could only be dreamed up by people who hate civilization and want to eliminate it. Paid for with taxpayer money.
Seriously. Is this even happening? Or more pointedly …how much of the left is actually real and not funded and fabricated to create a perception of majority thought?
Findings are so egregious and betraying and focus almost solely on manipulating the masses, creating discord, pushing trans LGBTQ ideology, racial division, attacking western values, Christianity, dividing populations, and generally….ONE BIG GLOBAL MIND**** confirming just about every single conspiracy theory ever uttered.
It’s no wonder they are all screeching like vampires dying ugly deaths in the sunlight….and attacking Elon Musk with their silly little protests. The media, which we now know are all getting paid and follow exactly the same talking points. Not like we didn’t know…..but now we REALLY KNOW. UGH
I hope the readers, especially Europeans are finding alternative media so you can actually see what’s being uncovered…. because it’s relevant to everyone on this planet, sadly. A game changer.
As much as we feel divided…the sunlight and vindication feels quite unifying…in the sense we are probably all doomed, because it is so deep and so wide and so evil.
This article is a joke. More cowardly cover up for the biggest global crimes in history. For God’s sake I hope some people get locked up. Or at least have their fat pensions and a house or two taken away.
The Democrats in the United States are DOOMED. And they know some are in deep s***. Lowest approval rating in history, while Trump support is climbing. The DOGE findings are why.
No citizen in the US paying attention wants DOGE to stop, except the usual baddies and brainwashed lefties with TDS, still wearing masks and getting jabs.
Why a majority are cheering, as every single bloated agency gets put on the chopping block. Why Trump is taking no prisoners, and why Americans have absolutely no appetite for funding a corrupt war across the pond with no end. As ungrateful European globalists happily use and abuse the taxpaying US citizen. It’s all rotten to the core.
And turns out…so are we.
Anyhoo! Just some context from the United States. Thanks and best to all.
Oh especially like this little nugget of gaslighting…”Now, wasteful government spending has been explicitly given a “woke” identity, to energise activists.”
USAID DOGE findings sure AF looks like it’s woke. Our federal bureaucracy in Washington D.C. is 93% Democrat and we did have a senile president for four years with lefties running wild. I didn’t even list how many different countries were sent money specifically tagged for gender reassignment surgery (Guatemala, Serbia??), drag shows and even gay operas. Definitely not a conservative agenda.
It won’t work in the UK for very pragmatic reasons – too many embedded vested interests (our own deep state) will prevent it. The PM does not have the same clout as a President, plus we have the Civil Service (cue reference to Yes, Minister…).
Parliament actually has more power than the President, don’t they? I mean,it’s the whole Gov’t, Executive, and Legislature, and the Judiciary only exists through legislation passed by Parliament.
A Brit-Trump with a strong and dedicated majority could dismantle everything. Fire all the civil servants, dismiss the judges, eliminate the Quangos, etc. It’s lack of will, not lack of power, because you’d be putting 50% of the Oxbridge caste on the unemployment line.
Or, as someone put it, why do the media want to defend gross waste and fraud? What’s in it for them?
The answer is that much of the waste and fraud passes to their political allies: either voters or activists.
The way to deliver the DOGE concept (Trump’s zany way of doing things might end up in this position) is to look rationally at the size of modern Government and if, and how, it should be slimmed down. There is a very strong case for doing so. In Britain, however, events (Britain’s increasing economic, financial, political and social problems) will short circuit the debate.
Why not start by firing 75% of the bureaucrats in the NHS? Anyone who doesn’t work directly in patient care or facility maintenance. What could they all possibly be doing?
If it turns out you need some of them back, hire new people.
There are so many corrupt individuals involved in the government, it would be hard to find them all and remove them
At least this will scare some of them into reducing their take
As for the tories, the past fourteen years they have been liberals and greens, Thatcher wouldn’t have recognised the party it has become
Just cancelling bet seri would make a difference, a complete waste and opportunity for further waste and graft
There is a good reason that Reform is doing so well, people have seen through the lefts lies and misinformation
The next four peats will be very hard on ordinary people and the damage done will last generations
For myself I know I will be poor the rest of my life no matter how hard I work and save for my retirement
Poor article. Firstly we can obviously challenge the assertion that the latter day incarnation of the Tories were “Right” in any real way, in the way they acted. Cosplay Right sometimes, perhaps. The airey dismissal of any possibility that we can improve the performance of our creaking mediocre state is depressing, albeit possibly realistic! Singapore and others show it can be done.