To add to the gloom, you neglected to mention the potential huge cut (upto 25%) to the STFC grant system. These grants fund all of us but especially the young active scientists. So, I am mostly worried that we will soon have a UK scientific community dominated by old farts like me! We can do science without all these telescopes (sorry!) but we can’t do science without people.

I should also note that our american colleagues are also feeling a squeeze. Seems their DoE funding is taking a massive hit as well. This may have implications for dark energy missions planned.

happy new year…….

I suspect that your argument about the recent upgrades will carry the day for UKIRT and MERLIN. I don’t really see any serious counter to that, and I think the public would be most upset to learn that having just spent millions on upgrades they were being abandoned.

As for what amounts to a further pull-out from ESA, well, the British government has always been less than visionary when it comes to space. That’s why the only recent British exploratory mission was run by a farmer who had to raise funding himself (yes, I know he’s a bit more than just a farmer; my point was that in other countries, it wouldn’t have happened that way). I know we have a long tradition of men in sheds doing things that officialdom won’t support and/or disapproves of, but you would have thought that past history (e.g. the jet engine…) would make officialdom a little less cynical. Perhaps Einstein was right; maybe human stupidity really is infinite. It’s just that a disproportionate amount of it seems to be manifest in our political masters.