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Renewal: Championing progress with sustainability

Britain’s leadership in many fields of science and technology has been squandered over the years, none more so than in the aerospace industry. Back in 1965, Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb, spoke about a vision of “a new Elizabethan age with Britain at the centre of a global transport network based on aerospace technology and, ultimately, hypersonic flight which would create new economic horizons”.

“Unlike the elites who have monopolised political discourse since 1945, the Wallis vision was, as one expects of somebody who grew up feeling part of an expanding culture, relentlessly future-oriented. In the 1980s, the pro-European Union duo of Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine abandoned our hypersonic programme, classified the patents (preventing civilian development) and made clear they preferred European integration to an independent global role based on technological exploration. This was the latest in a series of government blunders since 1945 which, ironically, saw the cancellation of Wallis’s own revolutionary TSR-2 plane in 1965. As Wallis lamented late in life: We should have been mistress of the skies. What a fearful opportunity this country has lost.”
(Dominic Cummings,
Director of the New Frontiers Foundation)

The New Party believes that it is in the national interest to fund pure research in addition to the current emphasis on applied research. A vigorous programme of ground-breaking research will in itself attract funding from other countries for UK establishments which employ scientists and technologists. We will reverse the current trend away from these subjects in schools and university courses and give a new impetus to technical innovation that Britain can sell all over the world.

We will provide special incentives to encourage ‘incubator’ projects and science parks and we will underwrite low-cost development loans where appropriate. We will also ensure that Britain takes part in the type of international projects which often produce positive spin-offs for industry and the research community as well as inspiration for prospective scientists.

The New Party’s proposals for university research, as well as student recruitment, will underpin our commitment to science and technology.

See also:

• News and Comment: Sovietised science betrays Enlightenment values, 16 March 2007.

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