James Watt, Brewdog’s co-founder and “Captain” is planning to take on government waste with the launch of Shadow DOGE.
Sound familiar?
Well the investor, entrepreneur and punk said he’s been inspired by Donald Trump and Elon Musk and wants you to think of the new operation as: “the unofficial, underground cousin of America’s Department Of Government Efficiency.”
He said that he was “sick of talking about how broken our government is” and wants to do something about it.
He says the plan is to:
- Use “extensive” Freedom of Information requests to public bodies find out “how carelessly our tax money is being spent.”
- Install an anonymous hotline for public sector workers to report waste
- Publish a monthly report to show where the government could be more efficient.
- Take “an entrepreneurial approach to the public sector” and highlight billions of pounds of potential savings.
- Publish a league table of the worst offending public bodies when it comes “to wasting our money.”
He added:
“Labour inherited a mess—but Rt Hon Rachel Reeves has made it worse.
“[…] Whilst today’s paltry growth numbers show the economy essentially flatlined for the last 6 months, the real story is that GDP per head dropped in Q4 2024 meaning that the standard of living dropped for everyone in the UK.”
READ MORE – Steven Bartlett teams up with BrewDog founder James Watt at Social Tip
Watt believes that the government is now facing the choice between raising taxes and cutting spending, but he believes that a business approach could show there is a third option.
“We show that if our government can become significantly more frugal with how it spends our money that will represent a far better solution than further increasing taxes which just leads to job losses and economic pain for everyone.”
And if you’re working in public relations….
“(A good place to start would be the £749 million the government blows on PR every year…)”
The inspiration for Shadow DOGE comes from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) which is dedicated to shrinking government and saving around $500bn in annual expenditure.
Since it was established, members of the DOGE team have gone into various government departments to monitor spending. Earlier this week, Musk called on the US to “delete entire agencies” from the government.
However attorneys general from 14 states have filed a lawsuit to challenge Musk’s authority to access sensitive government data and exercise “virtually unchecked power.”
The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., argues that President Trump violated the appointments clause of the Constitution by creating a federal department without congressional approval.
