Peter Mandelson

What have the Scientists ever done for us?

Thu, 03/18/2010 - 12:15

Somewhere in the interior of PARLIAMENT. A darkened room with a very conspiratorial atmosphere. MANDELSON and BROWN are seated at a table at one end of the room. DARLING, dressed in Activist gear — black robes and a red sash around his head — is standing by a plan on the wall. He is addressing a committee of about eight Masked Activists. Their faces are partially hidden.

Darling:
We get in through the underground cooling system here... up through to the hadron collider chamber here... and the collider itself is in this big ring here. Having grabbed the collider, we inform Cox that it's in our custody and forthwith issue our demands. Any questions?

Harris:

Peter Mandelson to run British Science

Sat, 06/06/2009 - 16:00

From the reshuffle that took place yesterday, one piece of news has slipped out under the radar. DIUS, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills currently responsible for the UK science funding councils, is apparently being disbanded just two years after its creation by Gordon Brown. As a result, responsibility for science will be propelled back across the alphabet soup of new government departments to the Dept. of Business, Enterprise, Regulation and something else beginning with R (BERR), formerly known as the Department of Trade and Industry, and now renamed again to become the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills. This will be run by Peter Mandelson, when he's not busy being Gordon Brown's right-hand man (which in all fairness he probably won't be after about Tuesday).