The Conservative Party launched their ‘Invitation to join the government of Britain’ Manifesto today. Like Labour, this makes pretty depressing reading for those concerned with the recession, innovation and future funding for research. Surprising that a party that claims to want to end big government (and raise individual choice), ‘government’ is the largest word in the text cloud above. (This text cloud has the same settings as the Labour Party one published on this blog yesterday).
Breaking down the Tory manifesto results in a similar desultory picture. In a Manifesto which is close to 30,000 words:
- ‘Innovation’ is mentioned only eight times;
- ‘Research & Development’ is mentioned as a couplet only twice, while ‘Research’ appears seven times;
- ‘Productivity’ comes up seven times, and
- ‘Recession’ four times.
Filed under: R&D and Innovation, Science and Innovation, General Election, Tory Manifesto
It strikes me that the Tories in the UK and the Republicans in the US are in the middle of a famine of new thinking. It’s a pity, because really new ideas instead of the sort of crack-brained, warmed over ideology that Democrats and Labour are offering us begs for a thoughtful response.