Actually Mr Brown managed to raid the Research

Councils budget this year to the tune of £68M the first time this has ever happend!

I had a nasty feeling that our new science minister wouldn't know a test tube from a bunsen burner...

From http://www.ianpearson.org.uk/

Qualifications:

BA Hons. Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford University. MA in

Industrial Relations and Ph.D in Industrial and Business Studies, University of Warwick.

And no mention of science or engineering in any previous employment.

How about not making it easy/fun/functional (engineers version of the oath?)

Make mobile phones/pages/television much harder to use so we hear 'You'd need a degree to operate that'.

Then perhaps comes more consideraton, more respect, more money, more more

Tomorrow the world!

He lists (http://www.ianpearson.org.uk/favourites.htm) one of his favourite web sites as How Stuff Works (http://www.howstuffworks.com/)

OK, perhaps this is clutching at straws, but hopefully he'll have the advice of some Civil Servants who have the appropriate qualifications and experience. On the other hand, not voting in favour of the Smoking Ban flies in the face of the science which has shown passive smoking's undesirable effects :(

My Dear Arnold, In British politics, under the auspices of the Caledonian Occupation Authority, there is absolutely no requirement for a Minister - senior of junior - to have any experience whatsoever except in the legal profession (preferably failed) and/or academia. Ministers with experience in their field? and actually knowing what they're talking about?? It's a novel idea, and quite intriguing but, alas, one has the feeling that the C.O.A. (see above) wouldn't countenance it for a moment.

Just when are they going to create a rule that you must have relevant qualifications to fulfil this kind of role. One of his biggest problems will be getting young people interested in science. What happens when a blind man leads a blind man? Both fall into a pit. This government makes me feel sick. I'd probably be better suited to the role, and all I have is a BSc in Chemistry, no Masters, no PhD, no fancy political qualifications crap, no nothing...

Then again, why should we be surprised. This is a government that employs over 1500 Iraqi trained doctors and 1000s of other foreign docs while we have 8000 freshly qualified, white, british doctors who don't want to blow us up and who can't get a first post. It infuriates me, so these guys must be enraged. Multiculturalism my foot. These immigrants take our jobs at our expense, and the goverment kisses their ass while we suffer. I've spent two years trying to find a job, with a first class degree, with ZERO success. So much for the government's science and education policy. I hope there's change, and FAST. I'm not hopeful.

Maybe somebody at the Technology Strategy Board can explain to him how bloody stupid the ID card project is.

Arnold/Ted: Estelle Morris was a former teacher, she was a marvellous SoS for Education, until the media hounded her for something which was blatantly somebody else's fault and she resigned. Fie, gutter media types, hang your filthy heads!

"Just when are they going to create a rule that you must have relevant qualifications to fulfil this (ministerial) kind of role."

To my knowledge, 'they' never have. Why all the complaining about this particular one?

The nearest any one of Brown's lot have got to a science qualification is the grade "D" achieved by David Miliband in his GCSE.What do you expect when we now have a Scottish historian dishing out the jobs?

and they most likely never will. Why this particular one? Because it's personally important to me. I believe you should be qualified for any job you do regardless of the subject matter you deal with. Don't dare throw my "complaining" back in my face. It's infuriating when an unqualified person gets a job like that, but a person such as myself, who has scientific qualifications, can't even get the most basic job, hence financial disaster. In other European countries, science graduates can get top jobs, often in government. Here you get pissed on by the government, who show more respect to immigrants who hate our country and our culture. I've got a right to be angry and no one, not even you, is going to tell me I should stop whining.

I have sent a comment on the article about Ian Pearson's successor at Defra so I may well stick my two'pennorth in here. It seems being a government minister is a political appointment so the only knowledge required is how to politic and of course the good thing about a minister knowing bog all about his ministry's remit is that hopefully he has to listen to advice from people who hopefully know what they are talking about because whilst he is listening he wont be talking out of his arse.

have our own space agency yet?

Let's face it. Interest in science will continue to decrease because the current intellectual atmosphere in the overall community turns off the majority of candidates for scientific study.

You can thank people like Richard Dawkins for this. The man is an enigma. His caustic attitude toward all but his inner circle of friends leaves him with only a small number interested in similar studies, so he goes on publishing sprees, preaching to an increasing ignorant and superstitious population.

Hmmmm

I can't imagine why anybody who is warm and upright would want to enter the education system to teach science in the UK. Come to think of it, I can't think why anybody who is warm and upright would want to enter the British education system at all. From where I stand (industrial physicist) teaching in the UK is no longer a profession. The minutiae of daily working life in teaching is determined by twats who wouldn't know which end to hold a stick of chalk but want to appear to the unthinking masses to be "improving education". They generally have chips on their shoulders because they failed their 11-pluses or left before taking A-levels or have shite grades & they resent excellence and intelligence as vile discrimination against The Thick. And we entrust education strategy to these tossers - no wonder current science and engineering education is one long drone of mediocrity - because mediocrity is the entire political aim - that's the whole point. Getting a C is all that matters for the political education targets (what else does "A-C" mean?) - and getting kids who are heading for a D to scrape a C absorbs the bulk of educational resource. F*** the kids who are good for A* s - we don't need to indulge the little bastards - can't be innate intelligence, must be overprivilege that we haven't yet ironed out. Here's to mediocrity!

Why would anybody with a 1st in Physics, Chemistry, Maths or Engineering - hell - why would anybody with a 3rd - want to teach alongside the hordes of Media Studies graduates, Ornamental Hermits & Lollipop-Ladies-turned-"Teaching-Assistants" who've been conscripted to read aloud from Science textbooks because they can vaguely remember seeing a test-tube at Primary School? Sod that. My son follows in my footsteps. I told him - by all means read physics, but if you decide to do it for a living - emigrate.