After the amazing success of the Science is Vital Rally on Saturday (see here for video and Jenny’s report and here for another first-hand account by Prateek Buch), it was off to the House of Commons today. Not quite in my brand new shoes, but they had at least been cleaned following extensive glue coverage in Friday night’s marathon placard-making session.
The lobby was a chance for us to put the case directly to our MPs, and to hear from representatives of the three main parties, and a statement read out by Vince Cable, who was unable to attend due to the fact that, at the time of the lobby meeting, he was standing at the dispatch box trying to explain why his pre-election pledge not to raise university tuition fees had been torn up.
Dr Jenny Rohn, Imran Khan (CaSE), Prof Adrian Smith (BIS), Prof. Colin Blakemore
I will leave it to others to write more detailed analyses of the lobby but I did manage to record my first impressions as I headed home from Westminster. It is clear that the situation is clearly still very serious for UK science. Please support the campaign in whatever way you can.
Real shame you couldn’t make it for the handing in of the petition. Especially seeing as we got a call to say that David Willetts wanted to see us. I still haven’t come down.
Ha – thanks Richard. I shall have to deal with the loss as best I can. However, despite all the attention we have won, I suspect this campaign is far from over.