“Successful scientists have a lot of power and have a strong personal interest in preserving current funding systems that let them build empires,” says Dominic Cummings

These empires include often bad treatment of young postdocs who are abused as cheap labour. … People in their twenties now have very little power or money in the research ecosystem. Further, they have to operate in an appalling time-wasting-grant-writing bureaucracy,” he adds
Who is this friend to post-docs staring at poor prospects?

Yes, that Dominic Cummings, a senior advisor to Boris Johnson. Question is will he do anything about it.