Billions of pounds for science = millions of votes from science?

The government yesterday announced £10 billion will be spent on science over the next three years - the largest ever investment by any government in British science. With a general election looming, does this reflect a key philosophy of the government with regard to supporting science or is it just the opening salvo in the battle to woo the white-coat constituency buy pushing Britain's place at the cutting edge of research and technology? As The Guardian points out, there are an estimated 1.9 million people in Britain with science qualifications who are normally ignored by politicians. Tony Blair and Patricia Hewitt yesterday reinforced the point when they arrived at Imperial College to show unexpected interest in chemical engineering and the role of catalysis.

Meanwhile, echoing our Politics and Science postings from 13 January 2005, Save British Science have said that while it's great that there's new money coming into science, 'we are increasinly seeing politicians dictate the scientific questions that the research councils must ask, giving specific allocations for things like energy research and biotechnology. Those things are important, but so is blue-skies research with no obvious application. Without it we would never have had things like genetics and biotechnology in the first place.

So....is the funding to be welcomed? Or is it just a cynical election ploy? Should the government be dictating how the cash is spent or should the public or research councils have a bigger say? Is £10 billion over three years enough? Should more cash be going into grass-roots chemistry, maths and physics to stop universities closing science departments?