Smarter and Smarter

Daveybloke's Minister for Mere Science, David Willetts, has proclaimed the Government's ambition to make the UK the "best place in the world to do science"; whereupon, being Daveybloke's Minister for Mere Science, he proclaimed in the next breath that the Government has no intention of doing anything about it. As in so many other matters, it suffices for the Government merely to state its ambitions; after that, it is up to the rest of us to shake off the shackles of laziness and disempowerment with which sixty years of Socialist interventionism have afflicted us, and get on our bikes for Britain. In a nutshell, "there will be no additional government funding", the requirements of Mere Science being as nothing to the crying need for faith schools, tax cuts and theological investigations of the Big Society thingy. The most Willetts is prepared to do is step out of the way of any private corporation or foreign university which may care to step in and do his job for him.

The director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering responded tactfully enough, but then said that "no political party has yet outlined a clear alternative vision for the UK economy", which is surely rather premature of him. No doubt the advantages of corporate feudalism, social Darwinism and splendid insularity will be exhaustively explained to us by both of the City's political wings as soon as the universities have done their job and generated the necessary big-societal slogans.