It's a complicated issue...
... and we now live in an era where complexity of any kind must be denied.
While funding is of course a significant factor, science requires an ecosystem in which to thrive. It requires strong institutions, facilities, international cooperation and respect.
Britain's universities are under attack from all side and from within. They depend increasingly on zero-hours contracts and generally treat their highly-qualified staff as disposable (showing the value they really place on "education"). Facilities are increasingly unavailable - there's a significant shortage of lab space for life sciences (for example), particularly in the Oxford-Cambridge "arc" whose development has largely been abandoned (because "levelling up" would mean having to spend equivalent sums in the north), so research is going elsewhere. Post-Brexit, the UK is not a preferred destination for EU researchers because of the high cost and complexity of moving their families and their precarious status once here: surprisingly, scientists are people and they have lives outside of their work. And generally they would prefer to be somewhere where they haven't had enough of experts, where they don't have to wait years for hospital treatment, can find a dentist and don't get yelled at in the supermarket for being foreign.
We've voted not to have the things that science requires. Or trade. Or social care. Etc. And a lot of people still seem happy to have empty slogans instead. It will be interesting to see whether that changes after a freezing winter with 13% inflation.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
