Having actually gone and read the Reid article, I think it is a great slur upon our ancestors. WW2 and the current terrorist problems are simply not comparable, both in scope and aims.
Where are these 214 people who have been convicted of terrorism offences? I cant think of more than 5 or 6, if any.
His quote:
“Mr Reid said business played a vital role in creating the security and resilience needed to defeat terrorists.

He urged the security sector to harness their expertise in the same way as bouncing bomb inventor Barnes Wallis and the Enigma code cracker Alan Turing did.”

Can effectively be taken as meaning that he wants more privatisation of security services.
Oh look, I was right:
“The home secretary also proposed the creation of a new “innovation taskforce” to encourage security and technology companies to work together where possible.”

Now, what does this suggest except more chances for confusion and money making by politicians and civil servants?

The major point, though, was that the specific examples Reid chose were poor for a government man to take up on due to those inventors’ effective betrayal by the state.

Perhaps I also should have specified that by “last few decades” I meant since the 1970s. I have no actual figures to back up the assertion that science and technology funding has been in decline since then, but I doubt this would be hard to track down, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence – such as that from guthrie, above.

We need to open it up to a wider debate as well- if university funding depends upon research, why bother teaching? I am slowly moving towards the idea that teaching and research are not quite as linked as we have been treating them this past century or two. What I learnt at university (Chemistry degree) was not research related until my 4th year project, and even then it was a small project. Meanwhile the real work was done by PhD students and post-docs.
And theres also the issue of universities getting money per bums on seats and hence maximising income by cutting real stuf flike labwork. I had a temporary job in a place, working under someone who had graduated from the same university 25 years earlier. When I fouled up big time, as he was telling me off, he pointed out how he had had twice as much laboratory time as I had, and gotten to use many of the instruments himself, and as a result he was much more hands on oriented.
So, I say more hands on work, and the funding necessary to do it.

Yeah but for fuck’s sake Clive, read _England and the Aeroplane_. You’ve got your head screwed on in a number of important ways – it’s a shame that you’re so horrendously wrong about this issue. Hell, I’ll lend you my copy if necessary.

By all means argue that government funding wouldn’t be a benefit to research efforts (although you’d be hard pushed to find many British examples of direct governmental funding for long-term research full-stop, at least not since the mid-19th century), but make up your mind what you’re arguing for/against, old chap – it’s getting very confusing.