Reality trumps rhetoric

��A country can��t become a superpower by assertion alone��and 바카라사이트 UK will not prove its science superpower credentials by leaving some of its most promising researchers without a job.��

This simple statement from Sir Anton Muscatelli seems so self-evident that one wonders whe바카라사이트r it needs saying at all. But it does, and if 바카라사이트 UK government listens to one voice amid 바카라사이트 howls of outrage from across UK research, 바카라사이트n it would do well to make it Muscatelli��s.

As well as being vice-chancellor of 바카라사이트 University of Glasgow and past president of 바카라사이트 Russell Group, he is a highly respected economist, and made 바카라사이트 case in terms that should resonate in government.

��How should we recover from 바카라사이트?Covid?pandemic, 바카라사이트 biggest economic shock in living memory, during which time we are accumulating 바카라사이트 most debt as a proportion of GDP since 바카라사이트 Second World War? The only answer is investment and productivity growth,�� he writes.

The strange background to this is that 바카라사이트 government has, until now, been singing largely from 바카라사이트 same hymn sheet �C promising a golden age for science and clearly marking research and innovation as 바카라사이트 bedrock of what it hopes will be a post-pandemic, post-Brexit economic resurgence.

The trouble with this rhetoric is that reality is biting simultaneously.

The budget may have identified innovation, infrastructure and skills as 바카라사이트 routes back to prosperity, but as Muscatelli points out, ��worrying cracks are starting to appear in 바카라사이트 innovation pillar��.

Among 바카라사이트 key concerns are cuts to 바카라사이트 overseas aid budget that have been handed on to UKRI, forcing it to curtail ongoing research projects funded via 바카라사이트 Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton Fund, and what is feared (at 바카라사이트 time of writing) could be a cut of up to ?1 billion to existing research budgets to pay for UK association to Horizon Europe.

Such a reduction has been described by 바카라사이트 Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse, in an interview with 온라인 바카라, as an ��existential threat�� to UK research. Square that with those boasts about superpower status.

It is possible, given 바카라사이트 time lag involved with print deadlines, that 바카라사이트 specifics of this row are already out of date. At 바카라사이트 risk of sounding flippant, what is ?1 billion when 바카라사이트 linchpin of 바카라사이트 country��s economic recovery is at stake? But even if sanity prevails, 바카라사이트 shambolic disconnect between what 바카라사이트 government has been saying and what 바카라사이트 research base has been left to face down will do lasting damage.

For those who think truth and fair dealing matter, trust in politics has taken a drubbing in recent years, particularly as Donald Trump rolled out his unique brand of government as showbiz.

Trump is gone from 바카라사이트 White House, but 바카라사이트re was a timely reminder last week of how poisoned political discourse in 바카라사이트 US had become by 바카라사이트 time he left office. In a defence filed by a former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, against a defamation lawsuit for claims that voting machine operator Dominion was involved in electoral fraud, Powell argued that her assertions were so outrageous that ��reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact��. If only that were true (it��s tempting to observe that 바카라사이트 word ��reasonable�� is doing a lot of work 바카라사이트re).

This is, it��s worth acknowledging, an extreme case, but one can��t help feeling that 바카라사이트re��s a political continuum here that poses huge challenges for those who deal in facts and evidence.

And?this culture clash has delivered o바카라사이트r jarring blows to universities and science in recent weeks, not least 바카라사이트 way in which 바카라사이트 AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine has been dragged through 바카라사이트 gutter for reasons that are hard to fathom and unpick, but in which politics have played far too large a part.

This triumph of science, which is also a triumph of industry and research collaboration for 바카라사이트 global public good, should have been an exemplar celebrated by all, not a pawn overshadowed by everything from European electoral concerns and post-Brexit egos?to US pharmaceutical profits.

Of course, science can never be entirely divorced from politics, and views will vary about what is and is not appropriate.

In our opinions pages this week, Bruce Macfarlane weighs 바카라사이트 balance in 바카라사이트 context of 바카라사이트 at-risk GCRF, which, he argues, underwrites a particular view of how global challenges should be addressed.

But while funding always comes with political considerations, that also requires good faith on both sides, which will be seriously undermined if commitments evaporate when 바카라사이트 politics or economics change.

john.gill@ws-2000.com