We spend far too much on science

A brilliant topic on the Today programme – the scandal of the government science budget. A staggering £3.4bn of our money is spent on science – thus socialising what should be a completely liberalised form of human endeavour. This partly explains why so many scientists are on call to add to the chorus of global warming alarmism: this is where the research funds lie. All this diverts scientific attention from cutting-edge science which runs against the grain of government priorities. We have a world class Foreign Office, yet are closing down embassies because its £1.8bn budget is deemed excessive. Scandalously, a school teaching Farsi and Arabic to GCHQ staff was recently closed because of cuts. Yet we’re giving idiots like Sir David King almost twice as much cash as our whole FCO operation. There should be a lot more fuss kicked up about this than there is.