Why would any go into that line of work when for the last twenty years they'd do better getting an unskilled job such as being an estate agent?

Oh well, there will be plenty of estate agents looking to retrain soon.

Don't worry, according to my mate Dubya, estate agents have had a rough time in Iran for the last twenty years and have all retrained as nuclear scientists already.

Just let Iran into the EU and then we can swap our estate agents for their scientists.

Sorted.

A bot of a strain I suspect. A couple of senna pods and half a bottle of castor oil should do it by tomorrow.

Its not 1984, its the Time Machine. The ongoing ensupidation[1] is producing an Eloi like society which cannot, metaphorically, tie its own shoe laces[2]. We are drowning in delusional x-factor muppets and ex-estate agents, meanwhile the skills go elsewhere. The last one left will not even be able to figure out how to turn off the lights.

[1] Yes, I know. Rolls of the tongue in such a nice way though.

[2] You were going to say something smart about Velcro(tm).

A bunch of politicians has finally realised that "additional efforts are needed ... giving a new impetus to mathematics, physics and chemistry teaching at every level."

Despite having presided over the decline of the nuclear industry (France excepted) and its central role in the founding of the EEC (remember the Euratom treaty?) they have the gall to expect us to believe they are competent to manage our affairs.

What's sad is that technologies which can enable safe and efficient use of uranium and thorium have been known for a decade or two (Gen-IV), as have methods to denature the long-lived components of nuclear waste (search [partition and transmutation]).

Science teaching is not the only area which needs attention. What's needed is that politicians should have some understanding of it too.

"Science teaching is not the only area which needs attention. What's needed is that politicians should have some understanding of it too."

So we are condemned to live in old technology because the purse strings are opened and closed by the less than well enough/fully educated. Surely there's bound to be a whole host of quangoes who would profess to provide insight into the Next Best Thing since sliced bread for Public Grant of Funding? Why complicate IT with a dumb Loan Arrangement, for the Capital always gets Repaid Directly Indirectly to Prime Principal Source/Feed. Who needs the Waste Fat in the Middle Creaming off Interest and adding Expenses

You can train a monkey, but you can't educate him.

This article inspires me with a nasty sense of schadenfreude. Dear, dear NuLabour and its idea that real education is filthy anti-egalitarian elitist nonsense improper in a truly proletarian society...well, they've sown the wind and in not much longer will be reaping the whirlwind.

You can't even design a decent sewage treatment plant without suitably educated boffins — and they need lots of post-educaction experience to properly ripen.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm inching into old-fart-hood, and won't be around when things start to get truly dire.