The coalition government's Business Secretary Vince Cable has unveiled a miraculous plan for a squeeze on public funding for scientific research, which will completely eradicate the need for ANY cash: don't do scientific research.
He urged universities to "stop wasting money" and said taxpayers should not have to meet the unnecessary costs of the testing done by strange men locked away in laboratories, speaking to each other in gibberish.
Mr Cable said in a speech in London that the government "values" UK science and research and spends £4.3bn a year, but that this was "£4.3bn a year too much".
"Personally," said Cable, "I think science is a lot of twaddle. Being from the north, I tend to hold a lot of strong opinions like that, and I won't be persuaded to change them - it's in our nature to be a bit stroppy."
"We in Yorkshire don't generally dabble in scientific affairs. Science is rubbish. It's for swots and pansies who haven't got anything better to do. They should get off their arses and go and look for proper jobs instead of pouring billions of pounds of taxpayers' money down the drain each year."
"We could always do with another Tea Shoppe in Harrogate, and I've often said how wonderful it would be to have a Fred Ramsden's in Twickenham. With my new plan, we could do away with science, provide Yorkshire fayre all over England, and still have enough money left over to repair those drystone walls up on the Moors."
Vince Cable is 208.
