While I was mid-upgrade, Professor David Nutt was sensationally sacked as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs by the home secretary, Alan Johnson. The news was broken by BBC reporter Mark Easton, who has been following conflict between science and politics that has been simmering ever since the government ignored scientific advice to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug.

I'll be blogging in much more depth about this as events continue to unfold, but it's worth making one point very clear about the relationship between science and the public, because a lot of people writing about this topic haven't picked up on it yet.