MORE than £10,000 of money from a taxpayer-funded group was blown on a Serbian drag festival called Dragoslavia.
The British Council granted the cash for the two-day LGBTQ+ event in Belgrade in June last year.
A total of £10,700 was awarded despite no British drag acts performing at the event.
It promoted 20 acts from what used to be Yugoslavia — Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and North Macedonia — with the tagline Girls On Film.
The show drew a live audience of 300 while footage was watched by a few hundred on YouTube.
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The amount spent on the show, which featured a British Council logo as part of its branding, was revealed after a written parliamentary question by Conservative MP Matthew Offord.
Foreign Under-Secretary of State David Rutley replied: “The FCDO strongly supports the British Council’s promotion of UK values overseas, including support for LGBT+ rights, through its work in education, the English language, as well as through arts and culture.”
The British Council, a quango that promotes the UK abroad, was last year given a three-year £511million grant-in-aid settlement by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
But it insists most of its revenue is generated through private contracts and its education operations.
Benjamin Elks, from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will take a dim view of contributing funds to this Belgrade drag bash.”
The British Council said it was part of its programme to “build connections, under-standing and trust”.