Cambridge University astrophysicist loses Esa project role over Brexit row

Urmstongran

I think the rubber dinghy arrivees would totally disagree with you GagaJo.

I’m not sure ‘the UK is better than a war zone’ is quite the standard I’d like for this country.

From the Financial Times yesterday:

“
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“Kwasi Kwarteng, business secretary, has prepared an alternative plan to spend £6bn over three years on a new global science fund, if the EU refuses to let the UK take part in Horizon. University leaders believe Kwarteng could activate his plan as early as next month.”

No, it was more to highlight the fact that these migrants prefer the UK to France or other parts of Europe Zonne. In some eyes we must be better.

Urmstongran

No, it was more to highlight the fact that these migrants prefer the UK to France or other parts of Europe Zonne. In some eyes we must be better.

Well, I'm certainly regretting my decision not to stay in Spain. Lovely school. Fantastic healthcare.

They wouldn't have me now. Too hard to get non-EU workers work permits.

Glorianny

Well look on the bright side- we may have Brexit but we have Liz Truss negotiating with the EU - oh hang on Liz Truss!!!

I haven't seen 'The Room Next Door' mentioned in GN where Michael Spicer plays a spin doctor feeding lines to politicians.

Here's two of his Liz Truss ones

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX_DwE7nU6o

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjlsdQfjdm8

It's really worth searching for the one he did on Hancock giving the daily Covid briefing.

Ah but you’d miss your boy GagaJo. He is the light of your life and the reason you returned, as you told us. Difficult choices have to be made sometimes but surely he is your silver lining?
?

I cut & pasted from the FT and the warning only came up about sharing once it was done. A genuine error on my part FT.

I did not vote in the Brexit referendum.

This was not because of disinterest.

I thought long about it.

I simply could not, at the time, make up my mind.

Some of my family were in the two world wars, one was badly wounded. I genuinely believed, and still believe, that the initiatives of the coal and steel community, then the EEC and later the EU are a substantial part of the reality that generations such as mine and later did not have to endure the horrors of war.

In around 2008 a petition to the Prime Minister in the then petitions system to zero rate VAT on veterinery treatment and prescriptions was answered that this could not be done due to a treaty that came into effect in 1973 when the United Kingdom joined the EEC.

Then later VAT on home fuel costs could not be reduced to zero because of the same reason.

So was the room with green seats just becoming like a local council?

Where would it end?

The fact of the matter is that people knew that, unlike France where each new step requires a referendum, denial of a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty of around 2008 implied that the only way to avoid going far further than as in 2016 was to get out while the opportunity was available, because it was highly likely that there would be no referendum on further integration.

To me, the key factor in all of this was that when the then Prime Minister Mr Cameron went to an EU summit to try to get some arrangement to change things because of problems in the UK he was told no, the four freedoms stood. Had the EU looked at the issues and arranged something, as the then EEC had in the 1960s in the Luxembourg Compromise over the concerns of France, then things might have been different. But they did not, and speculation of alternative histories is interesting but such do not alter historical facts and with such speculations it cannot be assumed what may have followed as other issues arose.

It appears to be the coordinating role this guy had that he's had to give up. He'll still be studying astrophysics and Cambridge is a big enough and well enough respected university to collaborate with astrophysical projects elsewhere. I'm sure it already does.

This might be a bit of a setback for some individuals but I doubt it matters that much in the long term.

Interesting Baggs.

I can’t find anything in the ‘science’ section of the Telegraph. So either they’re suppressing a topic of massive importance or ... it’s a storm in a teacup.

Hmm.

“Kwasi Kwarteng, business secretary, has prepared an alternative plan to spend £6bn over three years on a new global science fund, if the EU refuses to let the UK take part in Horizon. University leaders believe Kwarteng could activate his plan as early as next month.”

I'd suggest that the proportion of our annual EU budget contribution that was allocated to our participation in Horizon was probably a good deal less than £2billion p.a.

(Though I' would have to do a bit of research to prove it)

Brexit is costing us more money to replicate what we have lost through leaving the EU than it would have cost us to remain. The Bank of England currently estimates that Brexit is costing us £440 million a week; a figure considerable higher than the lie that EU membership was costing us £350 million pw that was proclaimed on the famous red bus.

Stanley Johnson has just got French citizenship...wonder why thousands of Brits have been getting EU passports since 2016???

Urmstongran

Ah but you’d miss your boy GagaJo. He is the light of your life and the reason you returned, as you told us. Difficult choices have to be made sometimes but surely he is your silver lining?
?

I think that trite reassurances about 'silver linings' to someone who cares deeply about the loss they've experienced because of Brexit are a tad insulting... and illustrative of the complete disregard that Brexiters have for the unwelcome difficulties in people's lives that their vote has caused.

‘Whatever’ if it fits your narrative MaizieD.
I wasn’t being unkind, but hey, take a pop if it makes you feel better.
?

I believe in Brexit. It’s going to be a slow burner till it ignites. We were in the EU for over 40 years. We’ve only been out (a bit) for 40 months. There’s a lot of uncoupling to do.

Baggs

It appears to be the coordinating role this guy had that he's had to give up. He'll still be studying astrophysics and Cambridge is a big enough and well enough respected university to collaborate with astrophysical projects elsewhere. I'm sure it already does.

This might be a bit of a setback for some individuals but I doubt it matters that much in the long term.

With all due respect Baggs, you are displaying a complete lack of understanding about this.

It’s not a co-ordinating role, it’s not like he was sat there with a spreadsheet setting up meetings and taking notes. He was the project lead; which means conceiving of the idea, conceptualising what needs to be done, recognising which research groups around the world are likely to have a relevant input, negotiating with them, applying for funding and seeing the project through. He's not "studying" astrophysics, he's discovering for the first time how bits of the universe work. Not studying.

No matter how big and well respected Cambridge is, it’s the 21st century now and big science projects rely on collaboration. So if you are out of the loop, you don't stand on your own, you fall; and the leading groups around the world leave you out of the big projects. So Kwarteng's dopey little $6bn, should it even manifest, isn't nearly enough. We're out of it now. (Ask me how I know ).

As for it not mattering in the long term, no, I don't suppose it will matter to the people who think the professors at Cambridge are studying astrophysics. It'll matter to the economy, industry, education and employment of scientists though. But the Brexit defenders probably won’t notice. Why would they? Blue passports, eh?

And I'm afraid the Torygraph Science section isn't exactly a barometer of how important things are to science.

Oh, missed this....apparently the £6bn is what we would have to pay to still be part of Horizon for 3 years. Which Kwarteng promised a year ago, but apparently hasn't discovered down the back of the sofa yet. But when he does he clearly thinks its better to keep it for ourselves.

Urmstongran

‘Whatever’ if it fits your narrative MaizieD.
I wasn’t being unkind, but hey, take a pop if it makes you feel better.
?

Not unkind, Ug. Just thoughtless.

It’s not a co-ordinating role

Beg your pardon, V, but the OP and the Guardian article said it is.

Let's just say my Cambridge alumnus astrophysicist relative has not been held back by EU regs. He even got a post-doc in an EU university after the Big B. He's also been studying and is studying astrophysics in two US unversities.

Cutting off nose to spite face comes to mind with regard to the EU Commission on this subject. UK is a leader in space science, not a tagger-alonger.

Urmstongran

Ah but you’d miss your boy GagaJo. He is the light of your life and the reason you returned, as you told us. Difficult choices have to be made sometimes but surely he is your silver lining?
?

He was born there. DD and myself had NIEs. I loved the summer there, but the winter was brutal. But, given that being able to afford to have the heating on here now, it may well end up being just as brutal here.

Baggs

^It’s not a co-ordinating role^

Beg your pardon, V, but the OP and the Guardian article said it is.

And I've explained what that means.

Baggs

Let's just say my Cambridge alumnus astrophysicist relative has not been held back by EU regs. He even got a post-doc in an EU university after the Big B. He's also been studying and is studying astrophysics in two US unversities.

Cutting off nose to spite face comes to mind with regard to the EU Commission on this subject. UK is a leader in space science, not a tagger-alonger.

So your Cambridge alumnus astrophysicist relative isn't in the UK then?

Which is the point

volver

Baggs

Let's just say my Cambridge alumnus astrophysicist relative has not been held back by EU regs. He even got a post-doc in an EU university after the Big B. He's also been studying and is studying astrophysics in two US unversities.

Cutting off nose to spite face comes to mind with regard to the EU Commission on this subject. UK is a leader in space science, not a tagger-alonger.

So your Cambridge alumnus astrophysicist relative isn't in the UK then?

^Which is the point^

It's not my point, V. My point is that there are plenty of opportunities for Cambridge astrophysicists throught the Rest Of The World, including the UK, regardless of pettiness from the EU Commission. Note that it is the EU Commission that I think at fault, not universities in the EU.

Cambridge is in the top five of world universities. I think the highest EU one is Bonne at thirty-third though I haven't checked recently.

Oops! Redundant e