Priorities?

The Government are to cease funding Jodrell Bank so as to save the grand sum of £2.5million a year. As a result of this scrimping, the UK wil lose its position amongst the forefront of radio astronomy. The Government’s Science & Technology Facilities Council has an annual budget of £370million, the Government want it to save £80million a year. The Times helpfully gives details of five things that the Government spends £2.5million a year on. Personally I would cut just one of them and sell Admiralty House, the grace-and-favour apartment occupied by Lord Malloch-Brown, Foreign Office Minister - that would fund the project for 1 year. Maybe next year they could sell David Blunkett's old grace and favour place in South Eaton Place. Alternatively, £2.5million is less than .02% of the amount paid in welfare every year. Here are some other sources of income that could be better used to fund Jodrell Bank:

The CSA paid out £25million in staff bonuses over its last 5 years and what a success that organisation was.

The Scottish Executive's "Debt Arrangement Scheme" (DAS), which helps people rearrange their debts so they can pay them off, was launched in 2004 as a flagship Executive policy to tackle Scots' spiralling debt. Since then, it has ploughed close to £12 million into setting up the service and supporting advisers whose job it is to deliver it. Yet in that time, the advisers have helped only 202 Scots with a total of only £3.2 million of debt. That scheme has cost £59,405 per person helped, when the debt was only £15,841 per person. If the Scottish Executive had just paid off the debt, there would be a pot of £8.8million left for more useful things, maybe the Barnet Formula could be ignored and the UK could use this surplus.

Managers at HMRC will receive “good performance" bonuses totalling £23 million this year.

The cost of the Saville inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings has already reached £181 million, that would have paid for 72 years of Jodrell Bank work.

The Diana inquest is now estimated to cost the British taxpayer £6 million.

Police translators cost at least £24 million in 2006/07


But here is the winner - Twenty staff are employed at the £6 million per annum budget Scotland Office to cope with just three letters a day. The Scotland Office still occupies offices in Whitehall but its role has shrunk dramatically since devolution in 1999. The 20 staff employed to deal with mail replied to 1252 letters in 2006-2007.

We could halve the budget of the Scottish office, maybe make the staff actually answer 6 letters a day and give the money to Jodrell Bank.



The serious point is that this Labour government has no problem funding administration and bureaucracy, because that keeps their voters employed. It's rather less happy doing something positive for the Country.