New sterling Fifty Pound note just released by Governor Andrew Bailey, featuring Alan Turing and the Computer he invented at Manchester University “this is only a foretaste of what is to come and only the shadow of what is going to be”
Governor Bailey: “Alan Turing was a gay man, whose transformational work in the fields of computer science, codebreaking, and developmental biology, was still not enough to spare him the appalling treatment to which he was subjected....
Governor: “By placing him on this new £50 banknote, we celebrate him for his achievements, and the values he symbolises, for which we can all be very proud.”
... apparently the ticker tape on the note has Turings birthday in binary code... and the hologram is one of the computer designs... gchq have issued this new set of code breaker puzzles based on the notes design: gchq.gov.uk/information/tu…
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Former FM & Alba Party leader Alex Salmond did suggest to me on @BBCNewsnight last night both that independence negotiations should start immediately if theres pro indy majority at Holyrood, and that if a referendum was denied, there were legal & “other democratic tests”
AS: “our argument is negotiations -which we believe should start when there is an independence majority in Parliament - that these negotiations might encompass referendums or other democratic tests..there might be international pressure, there could be international legal action”
also: “There will certainly be peaceful demonstrations of the people of Scotland. That's all part of the political pressure that you build up to take forward independence case”
Seems clear he intends to inject some pressure into faster paced push for indy, by variety of means.
After USTR acknowledged “ongoing review” of US-UK negotiations to date, my understanding is attempt here is to make it pro green etc.
But entire backdrop of any UK-US deal now so different from an administration that under Trump wanted to undermine EU & detach UK from it...
When I interviewed Trump’s USTR Lighthizer, was clear he was very focussed that what he would offer to UK would depend on how clean was the break between UK & EU, and he was sceptical UK would actually do it.
Question now is whether USTR will pick up reins of same negotiation...
Very interesting report from the Industrial Strategy Council explaining the UK state role in helping academics/ industry compress the OXford/ Astra vaccine development from 10-15 years to 11 months - though the ISC has just itself been disbanded by Government:
Government comes out of this report from Council it has disbanded very well - indeed this could be just the thing to send to EU capitals to explain why as co-parent of the vaccine, there was a certain expectation of its first fruits, while supplying rest of world at cost
Vaccine Taskforce became a “co-creator” of solutions for vaccine development with Oxford University which “proved crucial” in expediting trials... replaced DHSC as “owner”...
MHRA embedded staff at AZ to allow rolling clinical trials...
Blimey - of the 693,000 payrolled jobs lost over past pandemic year... 611k or 88% have been lost to under 35 year olds...
Overall this mornings jobs numbers did show some stabilisation at an unemployment rate of 5%, lower on latest weekly measures - despite new lockdown. Obvs thanks to 5m on furlough and employers adapting better to restrictions...
And the ONS latest attempt to estimate how many foreign workers left the uk over the past year - puts it at 180,000 fewer - roughly the population of Portsmouth lost of EU workers, presumed to have returned home. Less Than some early estimates but doesn’t include self employed.
Again Kate Bingham comes out of this well - day 1 coordination with US - this argues, as Id heard, German efforts to push the Biontech (Pfizer) vaccine invented in Germany came up against a bet on sanofi and precautionary principle applied to new mRNA tech nytimes.com/2021/03/20/wor…
Ie EU grabbed this competence in health during crisis from nation states - then applied non crisis value for money procurement & risk averse precautionary principles to programme. Difficult not to see that eg Germany would have done better if this had stayed national competence
As NYT put it and I’ve detailed elsewhere UK & US went into business with the pharma industry as a type of VC partner, and derisked the investments too, and so got hold of the supplies first....
Punchy response to PMs Integrated Review aim for UK “science superpower” from biggest UK private science funder @wellcometrust : research/ aid cuts/ no clarity on post Brexit Horizon research funding threaten to damage and eclipse ambition: wellcome.org/news/science-s…
“Aid cuts mean UK scientists will have to abandon work they’ve already started, often in partnership with academics in developing countries. It is unprecedented to not honour existing commitments..will damage our national reputation & flies in face of ‘global Britain’ ambitions”
On post EU Horizon research Wellcome warns of effective £1bn cut:
While “welcoming decision to continue participation in Horizon... they will be immensely frustrated, with good reason, if it’s going to be paid for by cuts to other research. We urgently need reassurance on this.”