Post-Brexit 'science superpower' UK still hasn't appointed a science minister The UK's position in science and innovation is under threat from a lack of government focus and financial investment according to a House of Lords committee. The UK government, which saw new Prime Minister Liz Truss take the reins three weeks ago, is yet to appoint a science minister amid concern the role, even when filled, …
Quite right, Cederic, and how glad I am to see you supporting positive discrimination in the workplace.
As you say, Liz Truss is a poor public speaker and may indeed be autistic. But even though an ability to communicate is part of the role she applied for I think it's simply marvellous that the Tory Membership were able to look past this and give her the job.
I do not support discrimination in the workplace. Selecting someone despite a characteristic is very different to selecting them because of it.
Certainly after a Prime Minister that charmed his way to the role it's refreshing to see someone appointed because of what they can actually do.
I acknowledge the commentary elsewhere regarding what she's done in role so far :)
These things are incompatible with turbo-charging inflation, jacking up interest rates, trashing the mortgage market, doing fuck all about the cost of living crisis or energy prices and increasing the costs of record government borrowing. As the financial markets are continuing to make crystal-clear.
Growing the economy would be wonderful. But the two clueless morons in Downing St have just wrecked the economy. And. That. Is. A. Disgrace.
@AC
"These things are incompatible with turbo-charging inflation, jacking up interest rates, trashing the mortgage market, doing fuck all about the cost of living crisis or energy prices and increasing the costs of record government borrowing. As the financial markets are continuing to make crystal-clear."
Why? But to address the points-
>turbo-charging inflation: Supply side inflation from covid and the war in Ukraine added to blowouts of QE which, as much as somehow some didnt believe, causes inflation.
>jacking up interest rates: Is this bad? We have had historically low interest rates which keep lowering and removes the BoE's ability to react to a crisis. Near zero is bad, some countries went negative which was poisonous to their economies.
>trashing the mortgage market: Linked to a change in the interest rates and banks that risk money in lending want to see what the situation is before continuing with huge risk.
>doing fuck all about the cost of living crisis: They are capping energy which is one of the major temporary inflation issues (war in Ukraine).
>or energy prices: It looks like the gov is going to allow fracking which will affect energy prices (one of the reasons the US isnt as badly affected).
>increasing the costs of record government borrowing: Government borrowing being an ongoing problem for some time that govs have failed to address but will only increase the problems in the long term.
"Growing the economy would be wonderful. But the two clueless morons in Downing St have just wrecked the economy. And. That. Is. A. Disgrace."
A knee jerk reaction by the markets is not wrecking the economy, and a fair amount of damage is inherited by the previous govs. I dont know if this gov will be any good but I am willing to give them a chance.
"A knee jerk reaction by the markets is not wrecking the economy, and a fair amount of damage is inherited by the previous govs. I dont know if this gov will be any good but I am willing to give them a chance."
We haven't had a new government. We haven't got a new government, we have a new shit stick in charge...or did you miss that? We've had the same fucking government for seven years, this latest one is from 2019 when they used a split in their party to win a mandate. If you count the ConLib period, we've had the same fucking government for 12 years. They haven't got the old "it was the previous lot" excuse: they are the previous fucking lot.
@Derezed
"We haven't had a new government."
Are you sure? If Truss sticks to her guns it would very much seem to be a new gov. Boris allies shuffled out and hopefully similarly minded people moved into the government positions (good or bad policies its better than a government infighting).
Maybe the same party but hopefully not the same sub group.
There is no mandate for a "new government", you get those from general elections, not when your leader is caught lying to parliament and behaving like a cunt. If you want a new government then let Truss see if the general public elect her when everybody gets a say. Starmer isn't Corbyn: he doesn't hate his own reflection.
@Derezed
"There is no mandate for a "new government", you get those from general elections,"
You vote for a party not a leader, the party hasnt changed. Not that I am particularly arguing against the reasoning but the reality of the system is the party. Just as we didnt get a choice when Brown took over from Blair.
"Starmer isn't Corbyn: he doesn't hate his own reflection."
But yet is talking about nationalising stuff as if the gov runs things better (not the current situation of the country)
It's pretty clear we don't vote for a leader. At what point did I say we did? Oh...when I said lets see if the public elect Truss...caught by my own text. I did mean as a party, not as a person, but I assume she is stupid enough to think she could win a public vote (here's a hint: outside the Tory party, she doesn't carry much water...Sunak was a far more popular choice but those grannies always like a woman in charge, even one that can't actually do public speaking or carry out foreign relations properly).
We DO vote for a manifesto...where was crashing the economy in that manifesto with bullshit 1970s economics?
If I vote for Labour and get the Chinese Communist Party I'd expect a general election since I voted LABOUR and not CCP.
Same goes for the Tories and the ERG: nobody put the ERG into power. If this is a new GOVERNMENT and not a new LEADERSHIP, then it goes to a general election.
@Derezed
"We DO vote for a manifesto...where was crashing the economy in that manifesto with bullshit 1970s economics?"
The same place as tuition fees and dropping trow and grabbing ankles for the EU (Blair). They campaign on a manifesto and then deviate. It does amuse me a little (in some morbid way) how this was deemed ok by some when Blair did it but now its the Tories with at least a change in leadership. I am not sure I would call it bullshit economics and what we were doing wasnt working. I guess I am just willing to give them a chance.
"If I vote for Labour and get the Chinese Communist Party I'd expect a general election since I voted LABOUR and not CCP."
Yet thats not how it happens. We have seen the ugly face of the CCP and Corbyn was rejected by the voters, but yet they still sit within labour. We wouldnt get a vote if someone like Corbyn took over after someone who was successful.
"Same goes for the Tories and the ERG: nobody put the ERG into power. If this is a new GOVERNMENT and not a new LEADERSHIP, then it goes to a general election."
But yet as they are the coalition of people who make up the Tories there is no election to change party in government. Personally I would like to see the sub groups break out for both labour and tory. That way as you say we could vote on their beliefs.
Oh on this one: "But yet is talking about nationalising stuff as if the gov runs things better (not the current situation of the country)"
They do run things better...look at London Transport or indeed any railway that gets nationalised. Look at the railway subsidy today and how much MORE it pulls in that BR ever did. It is a fallacy and total arrogance to believe that the private sector runs its state subsidised monopolies any better than public servants...it's just a convenient way to get them off the government's balance sheet and ensure they don't have to directly handle industrial action (like the shit that's currently hitting the fan and will be hitting the fan for years to come, for good reason).
Although among a subset of economists it's still trendy to ignore the rent seeking, greed, sheer hubris and stupidity of the private sector, a lot are coming back round to the idea that maybe governments SHOULD run energy and public transport and leave the "disruption" to building rockets, serving up sandwiches, asking if you'd like fries with that, exploring new pork markets and promoting British cheese.
@Derezed
"They do run things better"
Sorry but that is not borne out by history. It leads to underinvestment and political interests overtaking good management.
"ensure they don't have to directly handle industrial action"
Which of course the gov has to suffer and it becomes a political football above the interests of serving the customer.
Be honest. Our de facto private sector monopolies - water, trains, telecoms, etc - are hardly paragons of efficiency or good service. They're all sucking on the taxpayer's teat (or dodging tax) and sweating the assets instead of improving/replacing them. Which is costing everyone more in both the short and long term.
@AC
"Our de facto private sector monopolies -"
>water: instantly got huge capital investment to make necessary maintenance and upgrades the government failed to do. The result is cleaner, cheaper water managed to the regulations.
>trains: are in a better state than they used to be. The railway still owned by the government.
>telecoms: you no longer have to wait weeks for a BT engineer to come and plug in your phone. Your choices being black, grey or two tone.
"are hardly paragons of efficiency or good service."
And yet relative to their earlier conditions are absolute paragons. Scary isnt it how bad things were.
"They're all sucking on the taxpayer's teat (or dodging tax)"
There are plenty of people doing that to the welfare system and cash in hand jobs.
"sweating the assets instead of improving/replacing them."
You want them to sweat the assets. How irresponsible is it to pay for an asset which must ultimately be paid in the cost to the customer and then not get the value out of the asset. To do otherwise would increase the costs to the people/taxpayer. And yet they are improving and replacing.
@Codejunky, I think that you need to check your water supply for hallucinogens!
Since privatisation the new water companies have extracted tens of billions of pounds by borrowing against their assets, money then apportioned roughly one third as profits, two thirds invested.
Should the nation decide to bring those assets back to the public sector the tax payer is, again, on the hook for those debts.
As to whether the industry has been well-managed I’ll point you to sewerage pumped into the sea, a desalination plant in the Thames that was scheduled to be offline during the Summer (you know, the time when it might be needed..) etc.
@Azamino
"Since privatisation the new water companies have extracted tens of billions of pounds by borrowing against their assets, money then apportioned roughly one third as profits, two thirds invested."
And yet investment in water was increased when privatised to make the necessary upgrades and maintenance of the water infrastructure.
"Should the nation decide to bring those assets back to the public sector the tax payer is, again, on the hook for those debts."
As they would be if it remained nationalised and somehow the gov found it politically viable to spend all that money on fixing and upgrading. Plus of course the extra layers of bureaucracy and gender advisors necessary to run such a system.
"As to whether the industry has been well-managed I’ll point you to sewerage pumped into the sea"
And? How does that compare to other managed systems? This of course comes to the question of how much more do you want to pay for water to deal with these situations?
"a desalination plant in the Thames that was scheduled to be offline during the Summer (you know, the time when it might be needed..) etc."
Just had a quick look about that (didnt know). Seems they didnt run it due to high running costs. Desalination requires a lot of energy and UK policy for energy has been to bugger it for the green madness. I dont know if that is the cause but sounds very plausible.
You vote for a party not a leader, the party hasnt [sic] changed.
You might vote for a party, I vote for a candidate.
I'd like to have the opportunity to vote for a party instead / as well, but the chances of getting anything like real PR will probably have to wait until Labour's second term in around 5 years time, because although the party overwhelmingly supports it, the leader doesn't see it as a priority.
We used to have that when we voted for our MEPs.
You must be on really good drugs. The effects from Covid 19 and Putin's invasion have undoubtedly damaged just about every economy.
But this week, the UK economy and only the UK economy went down the shitter: emergency intervention by the central bank, government borrowing costs going through the roof, the exchange rate collapsing, pension companies on the brink of insolvency, chaos in the mortgage market, rocketing interest rates, etc. None of that happened elsewhere. What caused that epic fuckup was the actions of cheesemonger dizzy lizzy and kamikaze kwarteng on Friday.
It is clear from recent research that the strongest economic growth comes from a joint increase in consumer demand allied with productivity and investment in people, skills, and new technology.
Strongest consumer demand comes from actual consumers, i.e. the working and middle classes who make up the vast majority of the country, not gold-plated London apartments or super-yachts.
Hollowing out middle class confidence, and squeezing the workers until they can't spend anything has the exact opposite effect: it kills growth, irrespective of any tax breaks.
So whilst the UK's Financial Services may spread a woefully thin veneer of GDP success built upon stocks largely headquartered outside of the UK, and priced in USDollars, the rest of the economy is stumbling down an ever-more effluent-spattered sewer.
There's a continued squeeze on working conditions and pay, a squeeze on rights to protest, and amidst rising inflation any paltry stop-gap on energy bills won't cover the increasing shortfall in household budgets.
So peeking cautiously into our latest government's latest ERG-driven bucket of sick, all they appear to offer is tax breaks. That's it.
The rest of their policies continue to just make everything worse, as those bellweathers of confidence, the GBP exchange rate, and the price of UK Gov bonds, so clearly demonstrate.
@WageSlave5678
"It is clear from recent research that the strongest economic growth comes from a joint increase in consumer demand allied with productivity and investment in people, skills, and new technology."
Happy to accept that.
"Strongest consumer demand comes from actual consumers, i.e. the working and middle classes who make up the vast majority of the country, not gold-plated London apartments or super-yachts."
Ok. But the gold plated Londeners invest more (as you mention above).
"Hollowing out middle class confidence, and squeezing the workers until they can't spend anything has the exact opposite effect: it kills growth, irrespective of any tax breaks."
Ok. Not going to argue as I think tax has been too much for a while.
"So whilst the UK's Financial Services may spread a woefully thin veneer of GDP success built upon stocks largely headquartered outside of the UK, and priced in USDollars, the rest of the economy is stumbling down an ever-more effluent-spattered sewer."
Ok. Still fine with your assessment so far. The economy has been continuing down this path for a while.
"There's a continued squeeze on working conditions and pay, a squeeze on rights to protest, and amidst rising inflation any paltry stop-gap on energy bills won't cover the increasing shortfall in household budgets."
Agreed. Temporary inflation due to a war in the world, extra inflation from hitting the breaks on the economy and printing loads of money over covid, forever reduction of interest rates and blowing the budget incredibly to buy voters. Add that to terrible energy policy for at least 20 years and yes reality is biting.
"So peeking cautiously into our latest government's latest ERG-driven bucket of sick, all they appear to offer is tax breaks. That's it."
And it looks like they are going to allow fracking along with next month planning to (hopefully) address supply side issues in this supply side inflationary economy.
"The rest of their policies continue to just make everything worse, as those bellweathers of confidence, the GBP exchange rate, and the price of UK Gov bonds, so clearly demonstrate."
That depends on what their policies will be in November. If they really do push through growth promoting policies this could be the recovery we need. The knee jerk reaction because the gov signals its going to change course is caution on the part of the market.
I dont know if the new policies will be any good but we will see.
this is nonsense.
things were bad in the UK. worse than most other places, by the way.
after the speech of Kwasi Kwarteng, the UK economy has collapsed.
a very precise , easily pinpointed fact.
since that speech, and nothing else,
mortgages going through the roof
GBP devaluated, causing even higher prices in the supermarket
peoples pensions saved by a 65 Billion GBP action by BOE, which is fortunately not controlled by idiots..
a 15 min speech.
hopefully the man never says something again.
or gets a court injunction to shut up for ever after, until he leaves the job. should be soon enough.
@boatsman
"things were bad in the UK. worse than most other places, by the way."
Interesting claim but without much backing.
"after the speech of Kwasi Kwarteng, the UK economy has collapsed."
Except it didnt.
"a very precise , easily pinpointed fact."
And yet the economy is still going.
"mortgages going through the roof"
Are they? They have risen, which you would expect from increasing the base rate, which is at historic lows and so low as to reduce the ability of the BoE to react to crises.
"GBP devaluated, causing even higher prices in the supermarket"
I am guessing you have missed inflation occurring before the speech? A knee jerk reaction by the market is not doom.
"peoples pensions saved by a 65 Billion GBP action by BOE, which is fortunately not controlled by idiots.."
Wrong. £3.5 billion so far which could have been £30bn by now. The pledge was to manage the market expectations, now the market isnt overreacting the BoE doesnt need to do it.
The sky is not falling, take a breath
the equality point that IMF is making is fairly simple and based on historical, cold, hard evidence :
moneys used to filling the pockets of rich people does not get invested in economic activity that *might* give us jobs, security etc.
it tends to end up in buying bonds, luxury boats, jewelry or simply disappears in the cayman islands somewhere..
@boatsman
"the equality point that IMF is making is fairly simple and based on historical, cold, hard evidence"
Again it is a stupid complaint when what we need is growth and improving the economy. The IMF should be concerned about solvency not the latest fad.
"moneys used to filling the pockets of rich people does not get invested in economic activity that *might* give us jobs, security etc."
Thats bull but anyway. Why do these rich people get money? Are they the gov who take it by force? Or do they have to provide something people willingly trade for? Providing benefits to the customer as well as the provider?
"it tends to end up in buying bonds, luxury boats, jewelry or simply disappears in the cayman islands somewhere.."
Bonds= investment. Boats= employ people to make and maintain. Jewellery= employ people to make and maintain. Disappears in the cayman islands= stupid statement that assumes some hidden cave where they pile money? It flows into the economy even if its the caymans economy.
It must be terribly inconvenient for your disguised accusations that Conservative Party members indicated very clearly that they would have preferred Kemi Badenoch.
Sunak was rejected because of his role in undermining the Government and destroying the economy. Truss was selected because she actually espoused policies that the party membership could support.
Not everybody sees everything through a racial lens.
Truss was selected because she actually espoused policies that the party membership could support.
That may be true, but for myself I would have preferred policies based on pragmatism rather than party dogma.
I feel more than a little let down, but at my age I doubt if I have any right to be surprised. She would have been better to find a policy / policies that would have the support of the wider electorate, not just those who happen to be card - carrying members.
But how do you define what is best for the country? Through ideology.
Somebody on the far left would think that what is best for the country is a Marxist revolution. I think that would be terrible for the country.
I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum - I think shrinking the role of the state is good for everybody in the country. Many disagree.
People who agree with Truss think that the status quo was managed decline and that change needed to happen, drastically. They think that the BoE spent over a decade sitting on record low interest rates and that has had horrible but quiet consequences.
There is no single "correct" course of action for government. All politicians should be driven by ideology. If they aren't then they have no business being in politics because they will bend with the wind.
The best bit about people calling for revolutions similar to say the French revolution or the October revolution didn't read all the way to the end of the book.
Turns out that pretty much every time the person who spearheaded the revolution turns power mad, often worse than those they replaced, and you end up going round the loop again. Most of Robespierre's supported got the chop before they gave him the chop and you ended up with Napoleon. Same goes for Lenin and you ended with Stalin.
Politicians driven by ideology inevitably come a cropper because they get overtaken by events when their ideology is confronted by an uncomfortable and unavoidable reality.
For example, a true Tory government wouldn't have more than doubled the national debt to deal with Covid because borrowing and state intervention in free markets is bad. Corbyn's ideology was an epic fail that made the Labour Party unelectable - even against LIar Boris.
The best politiicans are not driven by ideology but by pragmatism, common sense and flexibility. These haven't been found at Westminster for decades - and it shows.
"The best politiicans are not driven by ideology but by pragmatism, common sense and flexibility."
They're also the ones accused by aggressive media interviewers of "U turning" and being "wishy washy" by changing their political stance to suit the circumstances. The media environment seems to favour politicians who stick to their guns no matter what.
"They think that the BoE spent over a decade sitting on record low interest rates and that has had horrible but quiet consequences."
The worst of which seem, to me at least, that many people have grown up with low interest rates, expected them to last forever, and are using credit up the hilt so now that interest rates have risen can no longer service their debts. As someone who took out their first mortgage when mortgage interest rates were at 13%, I took out one I could afford and assumed that interest rates might climb even further. Because of that, I've also been very careful with any form of borrowing, preferring instead to do without until I could save enough to afford $whatever in most cases. I've been lucky enough to never quite be on the borderline of having no savings and barely enough to make ends meet, living from one payday to the next, but certainly been in the position of having to budget very carefully.
who took out their first mortgage when mortgage interest rates were at 13%
Ditto (I think ours might have been taken out at 10% though - then worked it's way up to 15%). And we had an endowment mortgage that we eventually converted to a tracker mortgage so that we could overpay once the rates went down.
Which meant that, when our woefully underperforming endowments eventually matured, the lower-tan-advertised sums that they produced were actually enough to pay off the mortgage.
Us too. When we took out our with profits endowment mortgage the "risk" discussed with the mortgage expert/broker was that it might not give as much profit as was expected. And we happily accepted that level of risk. When we sought compensation for misselling we were told by the regulator that we'd accepted a moderate level of risk- which was the criterion. And was true. Except that apparently the regulations specified we had to be told the degree of risk ( which was- moderate- whatever than meant) but apparently not the depth of risk ( failing to actually pay off the mortgage)- which was never even breathed as a possibility. It was a "with profits" mortgage, i.e would pay off the loan and give us some cash as well. Not a hope to at least pay off the loan and maybe give a bit more mortgage. We'd have been happy with a normal repayment mortgage. That was what we'd asked for when we went to the guy. We were young and he'd been recommended.
"When we took out our with profits endowment mortgage the "risk" discussed with the mortgage expert/broker was that it might not give as much profit as was expected."
I did our with profits endowment mortgage through the building society I'd been with for years and got the full spiel about the possibility it may not pay off the mortgage. As it happened, it performed rather well and paid off the mortgage and gave me a five grand "windfall". The mortgage was "only" £18k at the time (a lot to me then!). I carried on saving with them and got another windfall when they converted to a bank. Luckily, I was no longer with them[*} when they went bust! (Yes, it was Northern Rock)
* I switched to the bank my employer used because it meant I got my salary a day sooner than those using other banks :-)
Yeah, sadly we used a broker, recommended to us. My previous mortgage I'd done myself. Luckily we only faced a small manageable shortfall- ( after the extra the endowment provider gave us to make up some of the difference) switched to a repayment mortgage and kept the endowment as a straight savings plan.
We were still quite angry about that definition of risk. Because we were prepared to accept the risk that the endowment might not offer growth needed to give us a lump sum. But we'd no idea that our regular payments might not be enough to pay off the actual mortgage.
"She would have been better to find a policy / policies that would have the support of the wider electorate, not just those who happen to be card - carrying members."
That's true from the point of view of a general election, but her "election" only had "card carrying Tory members" voting so the candidates had to schmooze their particular foibles rather then the electorate as a whole. And unlike in a general election where the opposition can make all sorts of wild "promises", there's no "get out clause" of "well, until we won we had no idea of the real state of the finances"
I would have preferred policies based on pragmatism rather than party dogma
Sadly, Truss seems to consider herself the seconding incarnation of Maggie. Like her or loathe her - one thing Maggie had was competence[1] and confidence.
Sadly, Truss only has one of those and it ain't competence.
[1] Bright enough to get a chemistry degree, bright enough to actually work for a living. Her economic polices though could be summed up as 'full speed ahead and damn the horses'. She too believed in trickle-down economics despite the fact (as acknowledged by Biden recently) they plainly don't work because they don't take human greed into account.
Someone or something with lots of money gets more and more money. They sure as hell are not going to invest that in a long-term (and possibly risky) business upgrade - they are going to either through it to their shareholders to make hedge funds richer or sock it away into their favourite tax haven a-la Rees-Mogg.
Why do you leftists pretend that ideology is a bad thing when it comes from somebody they disagree with?
You've got an ideology. Hopefully so does Starmer ( although he tried to make Corbyn PM so who knows? ).
If you don't have ideology then you're just asking to run a country with focus groups and opinion polls.
It's dishonest. Please stop it.
Tell us you disagree with her, fine. But to claim that it is bad that she has opinions is just silly.
Well, yes and no.
Yes, everyone has an ideology. However, politicians should use that to inform policy, not drive it. Policies should be evidence-led; that is, you should look at whether that policy, or something like it, works, or has the desired effect, and look at the reasons why. If you do that, it, in turn, should inform your ideology; you should be able to question your own preconceptions and re-shape them based on the evidence.
You might still be left with some fundamental principles that are unshakeable, such as thinking that government should be there to server the entire electorate, even the ones that didn't vote for you. People are always going to have fundamental beliefs, and they are always going to differ to those of others. However, making policy that affects a whole nation through sweeping changes, based on hunches, or on a book you read, is almost never a good idea.
I'd be just as unhappy with some extreme-left ideology, to be fair, and I think Starmer now has the next election clinched because he is sat in the centre-ground. This upsets many on the left, because he doesn't take things far enough, but the thing about politics is that it is a bit like steering an ocean-liner. You have to turn, and it takes a long time. If you try to do a right-angle, it will break in half. Truss is seeing the result of her extreme lurch to the right (from an already pretty right wing position) reflected in the polls. They currently have Labour and Conservatives where each other was at the last election, and the trajectory is showing that the gap is only going to widen. The poll-of-polls is an interesting metric to watch, as it's probably a bit more accurate than any individual poll, although I don't think all the data points are necessarily adjusted for selection bias.
I'd be satisfied to see this country become less extremely right-wing, because, quite frankly, the extremes at both ends are barking mad.
What is extreme right wing about last week's budget? Can you actually put your finger on it?
Because in reality it was one very left wing spending commitment and a few tiny cheap spending cuts.
What's happened here is the left wing media such as the BBC have decided that they managed to get rid of one Tory so they are going to get rid of another.
>>>>What's happened here is the left wing media such as the BBC have decided that they managed to get rid of one Tory so they are going to get rid of another.
Oh yes. Definitely the BBC conspiring. Nothing to do with the Nasty Party being a demonstrable hive of back-stabbing scum & villainy. Yet another extreme right-whinger pointing fingers at everything except where the blame is. Lurching ever futher right but screaming how radically left everyone else is. A true green inker. Such an apt nom de plume too.
Big, unfunded tax cuts for the richest 0.5% of the population and close to fuck all for anyone else.
You also seem to have forgotten it was shagger Boris's cabinet collegues who got rid of that lying bozo and part-time criminal. BTW it was shagger Boris and his chum(p)s who got rid of the previous PM. And the one before that.
Deluded of Tonbridge Wells would be a better name for someone who calls the BBC left wing. It's stuffed with Tories. It will come as a shock to readers of the Telegraph, Times, Mail, Sun that they're reading lefty propaganda.
I suspect the thumbs down were largely from people who don't agree with her policy stance. As a social democrat with a passing interest in libertarian ideals I am intrigued by Kemi Badenoch, even if I am not much attracted to her specific policy offer.
For the record, I think an intelligent, relatively young black woman with well defined views certainly sounds like a better prospect than Librium Liz.
I think the main issue with Kemi was that she wasn't going to tow the WEF/globalist line like a good puppet. Just look at the complete meltdown people are having over Italy. Ursula von der Leyen saying they have tools to deal with Italy.
They refer to Georgia Meloni as being like a certain bald Italian left winger from the 1930's yet Jacinda Adern is calling for global control over opinions on the internet with her 'single source of the truth'. That is more aligned with the bald Italian guy or that short Austrian guy with iffy facial hair and a thing for burly blond blokes.
Are you referring to Mussollini as left-wing? Interesting. Most people who define fascism as pretty right-wing, and Meloni's party is pretty well accepted to be hard, if not far-right.
As for Adern, I think you are mistaking wanting to put some controls on people presenting their opinions as facts as some sort of attack on opinions. I don't think it's particularly controversial to want to have things that are presented as facts to actually be truthful, but perhaps that is a problem for those who make a living spreading lies, who knows?
Opinions are, of course, like arseholes, everyone has one, and they all stink.
He was inspired by French socialists and opposed individualism. Everything within the state, nothing outside the state. That is not really right wing. But then I am a filthy centrist with libertarian tendencies.
The Biden administration has more in common with him right now trying to have state control over the corporations. And lets not forget that orange man was attacked for 'made in america' and now Biden want things 'made in america' cos that is now good again.
Meloni is being tarred with the 'far right' brush as she does not conform to the current ideology and supports family and country.
As for presenting facts that are actually truthful... many 'truths' have been shown to be wrong by questioning them. The earth is not flat, it is not the centre of the solar system and more recently the covid19 vaxx does affect women's periods, the spike protein it produces does travel around the body (and even leaves it via breast milk) and that the excess deaths in Sweden are lower than a lot of other countries that locked down.
12 months ago making those claims would get you tarred and feathered. Even the CNN doctor came out and said most face masks were 'face decoration'.
If the govt or the 'fact checkers' (which are just an extension of govt and monopolistic big business) are allowed to be the sole arbiters of the truth then we really are in the realm of the thought police.
You should be glad that we were not in that situation as in the early days talk of AGW was the minority. The earth is cooling, new ice age etc. We cannot work on majority/consensus rule alone as it can be very dangerous. Some of the greatest breakthroughs have come from the lone and/or dissenting voices.
>undermining the Government and destroying the economy
Logically can you undermine this government AND destroy the economy ?
Now, supporting the government and destroying the economy I could understand. Still with a clean break from 12 years of Tory rule we welcome a fresh new dawn of Trussism
Sunak was rejected because of his role in undermining the Government
Funny, but I thought Boris' improper behaviour in multiple ways, lying to parliament about it, trying to change to rules to get Owen Paterson off the hook, and attempting to appoint a known sex-pest to a senior role, was what did that?
Truss was selected because she actually espoused policies that the party membership could support.
So you are saying the party membership can't add up either, as clearly her and her choice of chancellor seem to lack basic knowledge of budgets and economics?
Sunak was rejected because of his role in undermining the Government ...
Well, if your entire cabinet has been chosen on the basis that they are Johnson loyalists, having one of them point out that he was in fact a lying, self-interested incompetent is probably a bit of a surprise. Of course Rishi Sunak was not the only one, which is even more of a surprise.
Boris Johnson did far, far more to undermine the government than anyone else.
-- Conservative Party members indicated very clearly that they would have preferred Kemi Badenoch. --
So would I. I liked Penny Mourdant when I say the videos of her blastingIan Blackford but on the TV debates - just no.
Kemi seemed to have a good approach and strong determination and, hopefully, didn't know enough about the Treasury to really stuff the economy.
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To be fair, they had a choice between two similarly appalling candidates.
It's a bit like having your racist grandma decide for you whether your dinner should be a bowl of human intestines, or some red-hot gravel.
Neither is a suitable choice, and the ones doing the choosing are deeply unqualified to be making the choice. The ones who have to suffer the consequences of the choice had no say.
Now, be fair.
For months, the tories had been telling us that Johnson was the best possible leader they could elect to do the job. Nobody else in the party could do it better.
Now, finally, they had to admit he was utterly unsuited to the job and would be better off in jail.
So, forced to choose someone else, it's quite clear that since Johnson was the best, anybody else would be worse. And so, indeed, it has proved.
And if they get rid of her, it will be someone worse still. Because every one of them is totally crap. They did, after all,. choose 4 crap leaders in succession. QED.
And if they get rid of her, it will be someone worse still. Because every one of them is totally crap. They did, after all,. choose 4 crap leaders in succession. QED.
The elephant in the room is that Tory party has got itself into a state where it can only field a cabinet of Brexiteers (or avowed Brexiteers, like Boris). That already restricts the possible choice of leader to a group of idiots. Let's face it, Liz Truss would be a bit of an embarrassment as a parish councillor.
She has no problem with public speaking. She used that form of speaking to make a point. If you look at everyone of her hustings recently, there are no issues.
The proof of idiocy is that for her strategy for cutting taxes, she was told it would crash the pound, she ignored the advice, went ahead, and indeed it did crash the pound. She has since failed to correct the problem.
Lots more out there if you google too.
Proof beyond reasonable doubt of her idiocy happened on Friday. Or haven't you realised her economic policy has crashed the pound, wrecked the mortgage market, raised interest rates for government bonds, threatened pension companies with insolvency, boosted inflation and made monetary policy and fiscal policy incompatible with each other? Even Diane Abbott couldn't fuck things up *that* badly. Or so quickly.
Truss wildly over-reached her capabilities when she was fucking up cheese. And. That. Is. A. Disgrace.
Is a core role in the job she has sought and obtained.
It is an important job.
There are other jobs, in fact all other jobs are not it.
We are not unreasonable in criticising her if she lacks a required ability, facility, skill, capability, or inclination ... and takes that job.
If you boil off all the filler and organic bovine fertiliser from the book it makes one or two good points such as the lack of uptake if STEM type subjects post GCSE. This is something that does need to be fixed.
However they are doing the economic equivalent of taking imodium and ex-lax at the same time and we are stuck in the middle of it.
So no need for government interference.
If markets require more STEM then salaries will rise, universities will add places and increase fees to pay for them and Eton will encourage its students to do physics instead of PPE.
Anything else would be socialism and we certainly don't want to sink to the levels of science education in the USSR.
And with the rise of far-right parties in the rest of europe there are bound to be loads of fleeing $ETHNIC$ scientists we can recruit
Why would someone at Eaton do some grubby subject like physics when they could do PPE, go to oxbridge and have mummy and daddy get them a job working in the city or whitehall getting paid a huge salary?
Salaries in STEM are already pretty good and just bonkers in 'merica. Still got an issue finding people.
Because if STEM was valuable it would pay better than finance, if it doesn't pay as well as finance then it obviously isn't important and should be cut
Close, but not quite on the money. If STEM was valuable to those who want to make quick profits at the expense of everyone else, they would be pouring money into it. They have worked out that it is more effective to pour that money into lobbying to have their own taxes reduced, getting lucrative contracts given to them that they can outsource as cheaply as possible to the lowest bidder, and so on.
Science is hard, and its value is in it being a societal good. Those currently in charge care only about societal goods as much as they can see some profit in selling them off.
This is the famous "no such thing as society" article from the magazine where it was printed.
Which bit do you disagree with?
I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation and it is, I think, one of the tragedies in which many of the benefits we give, which were meant to reassure people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help, that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were unfortunate—“It is all right. We joined together and we have these insurance schemes to look after it”.
That was the objective, but somehow there are some people who have been manipulating the system and so some of those help and benefits that were meant to say to people: “All right, if you cannot get a job, you shall have a basic standard of living!” but when people come and say: “But what is the point of working? I can get as much on the dole!” You say: “Look! It is not from the dole. It is your neighbour who is supplying it and if you can earn your own living then really you have a duty to do it and you will feel very much better!”
There is also something else I should say to them: “If that does not give you a basic standard, you know, there are ways in which we top up the standard. You can get your housing benefit.”
But it went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society.
There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.
That bit where Thatcher says, "There is no such thing as society." in the penultimate paragraph. It is a non sequitur; just because she is deliberately conflating the thing she has described as society, with society. This was then used to promote the corrosive idea of the cult of the individual, which is basically the embodiment of the concept that everyone should be out for themselves, and screw everyone else. This has directly led to the idea that unregulated free-market capitalism somehow benefits everyone, which is clearly untrue (you only have to look at the wealth inequality, and financial stability in countries which adopt this sort of policy).
Thatcher's speech was an excuse to remove the safety nets that society provides. That's fine if you're rich, but most people are not. People get sick, get old, have unexpected life events, suffer bereavements, accidents, and so on, and the purpose of the state should be to support all its citizens. The idea that you can't have this because the poor are scroungers is a neat diversion to the fact that the ones scrounging the most are at the top of the tree, not the bottom. You know, the ones who manage to accumulate more wealth than they could ever spend whilst working no harder (and often much less hard) than others...
"This was then used to promote the corrosive idea of the cult of the individual, which is basically the embodiment of the concept that everyone should be out for themselves, and screw everyone else."
I thought it ment pulling your own weight and not screwing everyone else by being out for themselves and expecting to take for nothing.
"This has directly led to the idea that unregulated free-market capitalism somehow benefits everyone, which is clearly untrue (you only have to look at the wealth inequality, and financial stability in countries which adopt this sort of policy)."
I am assuming you dont live in one of those countries then. Sorry but you seem to be misinformed.
My response was directly to the comment above it, referring to your glib comment about wealth inequality, and illustrating it with a worked example.
It should be manifestly obvious that Britain's richest man doesn't work that many times harder than someone who works hard and earns a poverty wage. It should also be obvious to anyone who spends more than a few seconds thinking about it that those who make the most from cheating the system are those who are now rich, not those who are poor (for example, the repellent Crispin Odey, and others who made a fortune shorting the pound after the dodgy referendum vote). It is a fault of the right that they like to reason that society should help no-one who is in need, because a few might exploit this. It is human nature that we will always have those who have no morals and will cheat, but to use this as an excuse for increasing wealth inequality is abhorrent.
I pay enough in taxes to have an opinion on where I would like to see them spent. I'd rather they went to the poor (and in turn back into the economy) than to the rich (and then offshore).
If you can't follow the argument, that inability lies with you.
@Loyal Commenter
"My response was directly to the comment above it, referring to your glib comment about wealth inequality, and illustrating it with a worked example."
So you were responding to a bit in your comment I quoted that you failed to relate to my response. Next time when travelling from A to C it might help to go through B.
"It should be manifestly obvious that Britain's richest man doesn't work that many times harder than someone who works hard and earns a poverty wage."
By harder do you mean sweat of their brow or output? If you mean the first then we can give a bunch of people spoons to dig a canal, if you mean the second then it takes a lot fewer people with capital intensive machines to achieve more in less time.
"those who make the most from cheating the system are those who are now rich"
That is a really risky strategy as cheating will reduce the trust others have in you and that easily gets in the way of being rich. While others become rich without cheating.
"Crispin Odey, and others who made a fortune shorting the pound after the dodgy referendum vote"
That sounds like he took a risk and made a return. What is wrong with that? Did you have a position on the pound?
"It is a fault of the right that they like to reason that society should help no-one who is in need, because a few might exploit this"
Sounds like we havnt had a right wing for a long time then. So much pumped out to support people for the last couple of decades. And Sunak took some serious criticism for the covid support that was gamed by cheats to the tune of billions.
"to use this as an excuse for increasing wealth inequality is abhorrent."
What is all this garbage about inequality? When did people stop wanting a better life and instead wanting to drag people down to make themselves feel better? That sounds repellent, I know I wouldnt want to be around such people.
"I pay enough in taxes to have an opinion on where I would like to see them spent"
And that is your problem, you can have an opinion but its not your money. Money taxed off you is for others to spend. If you honestly want a choice of where your money goes then you need to take your after tax and go apply it. I would also suggest it would be good for tax to fall so people have more rights to their own earnings.
"I'd rather they went to the poor (and in turn back into the economy) than to the rich (and then offshore)."
The rich disproportionally pay for public spending and receive considerably less in public funds.
I thought it ment [sic] pulling your own weight and not screwing everyone else by being out for themselves and expecting to take for nothing.
Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what Thatcher's government wanted you to think, and the right-wing press certainly promote that idea.
In reality, living off stolen benefits is a full-time job, and it always cost more to prevent it than was gained from doing so (the amount lost to benefit fraud has always been vanishingly miniscule when compared to the budget for benefits as a whole). The only real result was to punish the poor and disadvantaged by making them jump through hoops.
I'm lucky that I have a decent job and don't need to claim benefits. I have had times in my life where I have been equally unlucky, and the benefits system at the time (which was under a Labour government) was demeaning and humiliating. it certainly didn't help me, and there's no way I could have been well-off by cheating it.
Meanwhile, those screwing everyone else and not pulling their weight are those whose income comes from capital, and not from work.
@Loyal Commenter
"Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what Thatcher's government wanted you to think, and the right-wing press certainly promote that idea."
But as a mind reader you have another theory based on your bias against the right?
"In reality, living off stolen benefits is a full-time job, and it always cost more to prevent it than was gained from doing so"
I guess we should just let crooks get on with it then, its only their full time job and it costs more to stop it than is gained (although noting the police as it is this may already be the way).
"The only real result was to punish the poor and disadvantaged by making them jump through hoops."
Wont disagree with how bad the result is. A simpler system would be better.
"I'm lucky that I have a decent job and don't need to claim benefits. I have had times in my life where I have been equally unlucky, and the benefits system at the time (which was under a Labour government) was demeaning and humiliating. it certainly didn't help me, and there's no way I could have been well-off by cheating it."
And yet as you point out there are those who make a full time job cheating it. There are those who exploit the system and live better than their working neighbours too (seen a few examples myself).
"Meanwhile, those screwing everyone else and not pulling their weight are those whose income comes from capital, and not from work."
Thats a terrible conclusion. People screwing people out of money are the ones we described above and providing no benefit. Do you live in a slum in Africa? Or do you live in a capital intensive country where you have a job, you have luxuries and excess because there is capital to do it. Are you including pensioners? Their income is from the capital they built up through work and investment to give them something to live on.
Your conclusion is scarily backwards. I hope I somehow misunderstood it.
Thatcher's speech was an excuse to remove the safety nets that society provides.
This is a pie chart of UK government spending for the last full period.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/298524/government-spending-in-the-uk/
Half of the UK government expenditure is expended upon Health and Social Protection, which rises to two thirds should we include housing, social services, and education).
If that's removal of the safety nets then she obviously did a shoddy job.
If you had a heating control system that took, what 20 years to respond to daily temperature changes then I doubt you would think it works. Same goes with the market and getting people jobs. I got my first job out of uni designing communication chips for BT. Things that were pipe dreams when I first took an interest in science and was lucky enough to get a good broad science education that meant I could do the work. The market is not suitable for anything STEM. And so not for a modern world.
Nah, but I'm fairly sure that you're a "concern troll" trying to exploit that unlikely possibility, given that a couple of days ago you were attacking affordable sanitary towels because of the alleged environmental impact.
As if you really cared in either case.
Nice try though.
No, she was just poor at public speaking. You can tell by her more recent statements and interviews that she is more confident, more experienced and possibly has had public speaking lessons and sounds completely different to those early speeches. This can be seen with quite a few politicians over time who come to prominence. Thatcher is another good example of how her public presentation changed quite dramatically over time.
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ARM merely joins the long, long list of successful companies/products that got zero support or interest from the British establishment and so ended up in the hands of overseas entities..
(Some of it is even semi-deliberate - how many of our utility companies were floated so as to be attractive to foreign buyers?)
Correction: John Crace, not Grace.
It already has. JRM is a global warming denier. Mad Nad wanted Big Tech to turn off the algorithms. There was some "won't someone think of the children?" politician who said Australian law takes precedence over the laws of mathematics.
Coming soon: ditzy Lizzy will revoke those pesky laws of physics/thermodynamics to solve the energy crisis.
Coming soon: ditzy Lizzy will revoke those pesky laws of physics/thermodynamics to solve the energy crisis.
You may joke, but the haunted pencil Re-smog has already tried to make out that converting electricity to hydrogen, transporting it, and using it for heating is better than just using that electricity for heating (via heat pumps) in the first place, apparently completely oblivious to the laws of thermodynamics.
Nice to see I'm gathering downvotes for pointing out the disconnect between right-wing ideology and the fundamental principles that underpin the physical reality of the universe...
Or was it for the name calling, because I can assure you I've heard him called much worse? In which case, I might suggest that those who like to call others snowflakes shouldn't be so sensitive...
I'll just add, he obviously doesn't know much about the physical or chemical properties of hydrogen either. Something that can diffuse through things other gases can't, due to weird quantum tunnelling effects, and which is odourless and burns with an invisible flame isn't really something I'd be comfortable piping into my home, for safety reasons if nothing else.
Hydrogen is nasty as it will ignite over a very large air/fuel ratio range unlike natural gas.
Oddly the Beeb have changed their tune about hydrogen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-58249503
"It could also be a gamechanger in home heating"
Now that 'evil tory man' likes it, it is now bad:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63050910
"hydrogen was much less efficient and more costly than alternatives like heat pumps"
So, business reporter says it's good, science reporter points out the problems.
The conclusion to draw there might not be that the BBC have "changed their tune," as if they are one homogeneous mass with a single opinion, but that different parts of the BBC report on different things in different ways, and individual journalists have opinions.
Also, that science journalists might know about science, and business journalists might know about business, and quite often businesses are run on wishful thinking and false assumptions, whilst science always has to obey the laws of thermodynamics.
The second article you linked there is reporting on the study that I was referring to, that found that the overall cost of using renewables to generate electricity, use that to split water to produce hydrogen, and then store, transport and burn that hydrogen to produce that energy back as heat is less cost-effective than just using that electricity (minus transmission losses) to drive a heat pump. Anyone versed in thermodynamics could have told you that, because energy is lost to the environment at every step, and splitting water is pretty inefficient.
That's before you even get into the nastiness of hydrogen as a fuel, which those whose thinking on the subject is apparently only cursory, such as Rees-Mogg clearly haven't bothered with.
As an aside, the problem with heat pumps, of course, is that they are expensive, and because of the lower temperature differences involved compared to traditional central-heating circuits, require all your radiators to be replaced with ones that use a wider-bore pipe. In theory, just replacing a boiler with a hydrogen-fuelled one might be cheaper, but that ignores all the problem associated with the delivery and containment of that hydrogen. In terms of using it as a fuel for cooking, would you be comfortable using a gas hob where the flame is invisible? At least with natural gas, you can see the flame, so tell if it is lit. Also, as you note, the partial pressure required from hydrogen to cause an explosion is a much wider range than with natural gas, so in safety terms, it's a no-no.
Science is about evidence? Fuck that, it's what you believe that matters!
In fact we believe that by cutting back on science, we will actually have more science, so if we stop funding it altogether we will have more science than everyone else in the world!
Evidence based science went out the window in 2020 when the various parts of the NWO did their very best to make the death stats look as bad as possible in order to push the biggest transfer of wealth from the average person to the elite ruling class we have ever seen.
sharks aren't kosher
OBPedant: Sharks, being sea creatures, are kosher.. (in the original definition - I'm not up on modern kosher rules.. just don't cook them in fish broth or with their own eggs and you'll be fine!)
Err no. Kosher fish rules are very specific.
And haven't changed.
https://forward.com/food/377933/wtf-is-shark-kosher/ says...
Deuteronomy, the fifth book in the Torah, lays out the letter of the law:
“These you may eat of all that live in water: you may eat anything that has fins and scales. But you may not eat anything that has no fins and scales: it is unclean for you.”
Is Shark Kosher?
Fins — check! Scales? It’s complicated. If you’re the sciencey type, there’s a good guide to scale types here. But the short answer is no — as the respected kosher certification agency the Chicago Rabbinical Council puts it, “The scales must be true scales that can be removed without damaging the skin of the fish.” As such, “eels, lumpfish, shark, sturgeon, and swordfish, are not kosher.”
Because.. Who wants pounds nowadays?
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Businesses Secretary.
With Sterling at rates it was last around decimalisation, he'll go all nostalgic for pounds, shillings, pence to go along with Imperial measures he's promoted, even though decimalisation would have been not long after nanny changed his last nappy
... even though decimalisation would have been not long after nanny changed his last nappy
I'm not sure, I get the sense that he may well have been wearing nappies (and being breast-fed) well after decimalisation in 1971. Who knows, he could even be wearing one now. It would be foolhardy to make assumptions.
The current leadership has only been at the job two weeks, and 10 days of that was lost to due to mourning the queen.
The focus right now is on fucking up the economy. Once they're done fucking that up I have no doubt they will appoint a science minister to fuck up science too. But they're clearly very busy, and even though they have fucked the economy to an extraordinary level given they've only been at it a few days, there is a limit to how many things they can fuck up at once. We don't want them to lose focus now do we?
So lets just all show some patience, give them time to fuck up a few more things before they fuck up science.
Nah, he'll just siphon off the money to his self-serving chums while the public is distracted by his put-on "amusing" pretence/schtick of being an eccentric toff stuck in the nineteenth century, letting the harmless jokes bounce off him while they usefully distract from the fact he's a nasty right-wing POS.
In other words, much like Boris Johnson's "ha ha amusing posh man" act.
The current leadership has only been at the job two weeks, and 10 days of that was lost to due to mourning the queen.
Who died, let us not forget, less than two days after having to appoint Liz Truss as Prime Minister. That's a pretty conclusive (sic) "Fuck this. I'm out of here."
Not to be crass or anything, but if I was 96, having to deal with Johnson and Truss in one day would probably finish me off as well.
Those conspiracy-minded amongst us are currently wondering whether she just faked her own death in order to avoid having to award Johnson's resignation honours, and she's just keeping her head low until he properly fucks off, before popping up and pronouncing "fooled you all"
The current leadership has only been at the job two weeks, and 10 days of that was lost to due to mourning the queen.
To paraphrase what someone had posted on twitter, the Queen sacrificed two weeks of her life to give the pound that time before this lot set about tanking it
This has been outstanding for ages. There is no value in science now in the UK.
Politicians don't like it because science costs money and takes time.
Universities like STEM for prestige when the research is published but the subjects are hugely expensive.
Students don't like STEM because it is hard.
Nobody is prepared to look long term, and by that I mean much beyond a year, though more recently I think it is barely 1 month!
Just like medial schools, everything to do with this area is expensive:
Buildings
Resources
Labs
Student ratios
Compare that to the Schools or Management or Business when you can push canned drivel to a lecture theatre of 200 and and load more online for the same cost as 50 Chemistry students.
Science in the UK has been in terminal decline for decades and the catalyst was Blairs "50% must go to university". This started the change from universities as places of excellence and learning money-making businesses. The gradual increases in fees and loans have made it worse and universities becoming a competitive business market is the icing on the cake.
There is, I'm sure a degree of truth in that. Making 50% the target for university entrance and removing student grants in effect means that a lot of young people perceive that they are forced into debt. (arguably, as per Martin Lewis' argument, that isn't quite so because they may never need to repay it). The result is, arguably, that universities provide courses that either are designed for entrance to highly paid jobs or are just degree mills- and students choose these rather than traditional academic courses that provide the skills we need. Not just STEM but also languages.
The science minister is a bit like the industrial strategy. Lost in action.
They have been promising to do something for years but nothing ever shows up. Simply they are not really at all serious about science and engineering. Look at countries that are and see how they are doing compared to the UK.
"yet to appoint a science minister amid concern the role, even when filled, lacks sufficient influence."
In that case it seems filling it is as low a priority as its influence. While one of the few I expect I am willing to give the new government a chance to see what they can achieve. But to be honest if the gov isnt interfering in science I guess science will probably be better for it.
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