Watching Timothy being sucked out of the room by an overpowering beam of light may have been fun, and I enjoy fun as much as anyone, but it’s the end of year test in four weeks so let’s get back to phosphorus.”Even as an adult, the benefits of science are not always obvious. Whereas during my chemistry lessons, if a spaceship had pulled up outside the classroom, the teacher would have yelled: “Why are you staring out of the window? Do you think you’ll learn what comes after lithium by looking at aliens?” Then he might clap his hands and say: “That’s enough. But instead, you learn rubbish like periodic tables, which makes as much sense as if PE consisted of reciting all the teams in the Scottish second division.Because you can’t get anyone normal to be enthusiastic about science unless you present the big picture, of how every major breakthrough was not the result of lists and equations but of a fantastic philosophical leap of imagination. Chemistry, for example, should create unlimited joy for schoolkids, as you work out how the universe is made and get to blow things up. Nowadays, they’d have the radio out of it, then nick the tail off a comet. I ask you.”It’s taken an extraordinary effort to make the human race so blas?bout such astonishing findings, that starts with the way science is usually taught at school.

Because when you see pictures from space, you can’t help thinking: “To be honest, when you’ve seen one galaxy you’ve seen them all.”
Even if you pressed people to ponder on the fact that we’re seeing images of space as it was 13 billion years ago, you’d probably get a reaction like: “Ooh, I bet it’s seen some changes in all that time.” And someone might say: “I tell you what, back then, you could go out and leave your solar system unlocked. Yesterday, some pictures were released of the most distant things ever seen, a group of stars 13 billion light years away Yet most of us hardly noticed. He needs to borrow a phrase from the Chancellor and lead his constitutional revolution for a purpose The reforms must all hang together or they will fall apart. At the moment, his government’s historic legacy is in danger of falling apart.s.richards independent.co.uk
More from Steve Richards.

If he had done so I suspect that mayors would be popular and more credible institutions by now.I did not even start to explain to my baffled diplomat how it was that this weekend at Labour’s spring conference, John Prescott will be stressing that he plans to cap the budgets of some councils. Mr Prescott, the most consistent advocate for regional assemblies, also knows it is central government that runs and finances local authorities. Therefore he is getting the blame for high council tax bills. He will continue to get the blame until he gives power away to those at a local level, a risky business but one that would be more consistent with the thrust of the constitutional reform programme.If, that is, the constitutional programme has a thrust at all This is the challenge for Mr Blair. So why will there not be one in Cornwall?” I could not really start to explain why the Government was too scared to impose assemblies across the country.

I am only grateful he did not ask me why Hartlepool had a monkey as elected mayor and most towns had no mayor at all.Mr Blair was right to propose the idea of high-profile mayors, although he now regards it as one of his errors. His error was to allow the process to be decided by referendums. He should have legislated first and then allowed the local electorates to decide whom they wanted to elect as their mayors. Council leaders had to justify the precise amount during election campaigns.The diplomat paused and asked, “Can you explain to me the British government’s plans for regional assemblies? As far as I understand it, there will be one in Newcastle. He was explaining to me how councils in his country were directly responsible for many local services and therefore demanded a substantial amount in taxation. To my surprise, the speeches against the Government’s proposals were of a dismally low quality, unusual for the Lords.