The British government has announced its intention to shut down England’s radio telescope array, Jodrell Bank.
The Science & Technology Fund is facing an £80m shortfall in its budget which it intends to plug by cutting funding. So far, £8m of taxpayers money has been spent on the e-Merlin project which is an upgrade to the radio telescope array. The decision to close Jodrell Bank will also put at risk the decision to site the headquarters of the Square Kilometre Array project in England as we are likely to lose the expertise required to operate the facility when Jodrell Bank is shut down.
As of February, the British government estimated its contribution to the EU’s Galileo spy satellite system at £96.7m. Galileo is a duplication of the perfectly servicable and free GPS system owned and operated by the US Military. The private companies involved in the Galileo project have all abandoned it after they realised, at considerable expense, that it could never be made to pay for itself but rather than writing it off as an unjustifiable and unnecessary expense, the EU has instead raided tens of millions of pounds from a slush fund it has built up of money it has taken from member states but not spent to cover the costs.
So which would you prefer your taxes to be spent on? A European sat-nav system that will cost the taxpayer billions in perpetuity and be used to track your movements around the country and charge you to use the roads that you have already paid for in your taxes or our own radio telescope facilities that provide jobs and income to English people and has helped England to become one of the foremost authorities in radio astronomy? Tough choice.
Technorati Tags: Federal Europe, Galileo, Jodrell Bank
I couldn’t agree more, Jodrell Bank has been at the forefront of scientific astronomical advancement in England for all my life and the current work they are doing will give a few more clues about the beginnings of the universe. But only if they are funded properly and not dumped in favour of a useless duplicate of the GPS system.
Cut asylum services! Cut payouts for multiple wives! Stop on putting road signes in Polish! You will be surprised how much money have you really got!
I know your feelings on asylum Max but it’s reasonable to offer asylum to genuine asylum seekers. There are two problems with asylum. The first problem is what you accept as a genuine asylum claim. Anyone who enters the country from France or another friendly country isn’t a genuine asylum seeker, they should have claimed asylum before they got here. The second problem is banning asylum seekers from working. They should be given a job with the local authority that’s looking after them. If they were genuine asylum seekers they would be happy to work.
Of course there’s a lot of money to be saved from the asylum system but it should be for the right reasons, not just an outright ban on asylum seekers.
“Piss off, we’re full” isn’t a totally bad idea, Stu.
I agree but not to genuine asylum seekers. The way things are going, you might be looking for asylum over here yourself one day. 😉
If asylum seekers were allowed to work, it would solve so many problems…………..
It would. Unemployed people too.
The idea of allowing asylum seekers to work is completely outrageous! That would mean that if you are black/asian all you need to find a job in England is to dispose your passport in an ariplane.
OK, I give up. I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes now, trying to compose a response to Scaffold’s post, but it’s so MASSIVELY ignorant on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start. So I’m no going to bother, other than to salute the tremendous achievement of compressing so much ignorance into just thirty-seven words.
Not bad at all for a person with English as a second language.