The Labour government has done good things for science, making it a priority and raising investment dramatically since the Conservative days. But has the tide now turned, asks Natasha Gilbert
This week's announcement that the UK's world-class network of radio telescopes run by the Jodrell Bank observatory could face the axe is the latest in a string of cuts to hit physicists.
The Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC), the UK's main physics funding body, says the cuts are necessary to plug an £80m hole in its budget after a poor settlement in last year's spending review. The severity of the cuts the STFC has made has been widely criticised.
Not surprising physicists are angry, and have set up a website to track developments of the funding crisis.
But it's not only physicists who are suffering. The government put the squeeze on all research disciplines, apart from medicine, in last year's budget. This tightening of the science budget purse strings is looking like a worrying trend in the government's attitude towards science.
In December last year the Treasury took £92m from the Medical Research Council to balance the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills' books. Earlier in the year, the government raided the research councils'supposedly ringfenced budget, which has been in place for decades to protect science funding, taking £68m to prop up British Energy and MG Rover.
Is Labour's love affair with science cooling?
