I once heard an eminent climatologists, when asked if global warming was responsible for current UK flooding, described the climate as the underlying nature and trend, while the weather was superficial and transitory. It seems to me that you can use these concepts to describe most things; an underlying nature coupled with a more superficial and transient nature. For example, in general my temperament may be good-natured (my underlying climate is even), however, I may become angry or disheartened for a short amount of time (my weather may become stormy for a short time). Of course the climatologist answered that the UK floods were short-term weather events and were not directly related to the underlying climate.

So what does this have to do with the impending UK elections? Well for me the climate of Labour is still firmly ‘Social Justice‘ and people and community first, while the Conservatives climate is still ‘Economic Liberalism‘ with companies and self interest first, people and community last; I won’t bother with the other parties as they are really just window dressing for this election.

So what does this have to do with Science and Education? Simply that Labour channel more money into science, education, and public services, than will the Tories. This advances society and thereby advances business and commerce.

People want financially sound business as this benefits them in their employment. However, a business first model advances organisations above people, wishing for most of the workforce to be less-educated and therefore mailable with just 10-15% or so to be at a more educated level; to achieve organisational leadership and competition. This stance encourages an artificial elitism in education (everyone should be educated to their own ability and not to the artificial requirements of business and commerce), and a scientific focus which only sees commercial outcomes as being useful or successful; I don’t need to make the point as to why this is a short sighted view.