A look back in anxiety
As seems to happen more often, I start a new week trying to discuss the previous one, only to be struck by news that takes your breath away. Yesterday, that news was the death of Rod Liddle, the supreme burster of all pompous balloons. He was witty, perspicacious, and kind in many ways, and he will be missed equally in both politics and journalism.
He had considerably less fear than I do, and once eventually apologised to the then equalities minister Harriet Harman for a piece he had penned in relation to her. The number of times I have started to write, or at the very least considered when irked: “So – [insert name], then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober.” I will leave you to guess whose names have appeared in these scribblings and who might have made the insertion, and the term is used advisedly. RIP Ron Liddle and thanks for the insight.
Last week, the UK Research and Innovation council said it will stop all funding for e-MERLIN, the national radio astronomy network based at Jodrell Bank, when its current grant ends in March 2028. The decision comes as the research council faces a £700 million deficit caused by flat budgets and rising energy costs. This means the facility will lose its £2.8 million annual operating budget entirely. Unless new public or private funding is found, all seven radio telescopes at the site will have to stop their observations.
The 76-metre Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank is a UNESCO World Heritage site and plays a key role in science and defence. In addition to studying black holes and changes in space, the telescope supports national security by providing advanced space monitoring. The e-MERLIN system, which relies on the Lovell Telescope, tracks artificial satellites, watches for dangerous space debris, and carries out radar surveillance needed for aerospace security. It also provides very precise measurements of Earth’s rotation, which are vital for military geolocation, satellite communication, and global navigation systems. Put simply, your satellite navigation could be affected.
Losing this infrastructure would seriously hurt British research and national security. Shutting down the network puts the work of nearly 3,000 researchers at risk and could push young physicists to leave the country for better opportunities. Giving up a reliable UK space-tracking system means relying more on foreign defence surveillance and makes it harder to meet innovation goals in northern England. With other budget cuts affecting UK involvement in CERN and international telescope projects, closing Jodrell Bank’s operations would weaken the UK’s position as a leader in science and technology.
To contextualise the £2.8 million annual shortfall threatening Jodrell Bank’s e-MERLIN array, the figure is a small fraction of modern commercial sports sponsorship budgets. In Formula 1, top-tier title sponsorships for teams like Red Bull Racing or Ferrari exceed £75 million to £85 million per year. In comparison, minor associate logos on a midfield car cost between £1.5 million and £4 million annually, meaning a single secondary logo placement on an F1 car equals the annual operational cost of the UK’s premier radio astronomy network.
Not a petrol-head? Then consider that a typical America’s Cup sailing campaign requires major corporate partnerships to pay between £5m and £15m pa for supporting roles, with overall team budgets exceeding £100 million. Crikey, even the Grand National gets several million pounds for just three days of exposure. All this instead of the opportunity to make a huge contribution to the knowledge, defence and well-being of the species for ten years. Let me also make the point from a position of long experience in sports sponsorship, that whatever the base cost, the sponsor will have to add between 65 and 100% of the budget for the PR, branding, entertaining, and so on. This is known as activation.
Let me also suggest that if I were asked to write this pitch, I would be seeking a ten-year deal with a 10% per annum uplift - starting at £3m per annum. Over the period of the contract, the total would still be shy of £48m - in total. Even with that built-in annual increase, the entire decade-long cost to keep a landmark scientific and defence asset running is still less than the cost of fielding a top Formula 1 team for 75 racing days a year, and all without the endless pit-lane ego battles and commercial political drama!
Cmon Ineos, Oracle, HP - even John Smith’s Bitter. What about Red Bull? It will make you Flyyyy
As predicted over a year ago, the schism in racing is beginning.
Jockey Club Racecourses plans to leave the Racecourse Association and help set up a new group to represent British racecourses. This move comes after disagreements about how the RCA is run, how votes are distributed, and whether it can make decisions quickly enough for the sport. Jockey Club Racecourses, which runs 15 venues such as Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom, and Newmarket, wanted a more balanced board, better representation for major contributors, and a voice for minority opinions. They decided the RCA’s review did not go far enough. The new group aims to give racecourses a stronger and more focused voice when dealing with the British Horseracing Authority, the government, and other industry bodies. Ascot had already said it would leave, and Goodwood, Newbury, and York also called for changes. This split could weaken the RCA and lead to rival groups, but supporters believe a new structure could bring clearer leadership, quicker decisions, and more accountability.
We are now a matter of weeks away from Arena Racing Company ARC breaking away; largely because it has a fundamentally different business model to the others.
Quite what will happen to The Pattern, or indeed the number of races, or the two very different relationships with the bookies and The Tote, and the structural integrity of both the BHA and ultimately the sport is a mystery. Unlike the oft-repeated Tom Stoppard lines from Shakespeare in Love, I fear all will not be well - and the how is not a mystery.
As Rumsfeld reminded us years ago, life is complicated by a constant stream of Known Unknowns and made worse by their wicked cousins the Unknown Unknowns. We know, for example, that the UK has experienced a large number of ground fires. (So far, there have actually been fewer than last year).
We also know that very few fires start without human involvement, whether a dropped cigarette, a broken bottle, a disposable barbecue, or, increasingly, an arsonist trying to prove that global warming signals the end of the world.
In some cases, that man-made intervention has directly led to the intensity and depth of the fires. Step forward: DEFRA, Natural England, The National Trust, and a host of scientific bodies and a liberal elite who know far more than the rest of us. But ask any tenant farmer for their view, rather preposterously driven by generations of experience, whether the relentless push to ban heather burning, whether driven by statutory government legislation or enforced through non-burning covenants by corporate landlords and utility companies, whether it has worked, and I’ll bet you 6/1 on I know the reply.
For hundreds of years, winter burning was a vital moorland tool. It efficiently cleared old, woody vegetation to promote new growth, which in turn provided crucial early spring grazing for sheep and livestock. HMG’s interference and ban on deep peat burning, along with major landowners like water companies and conservation trusts prohibiting it in tenancy agreements, have emasculated moorland management.
You seem surprised I mention water companies, so let me explain. Water companies own vast catchments in the uplands to harvest water supplies. Allegedly controlled burning degrades peat, releasing heavy sediment and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) into reservoirs, which drastically increases water treatment costs. Yorkshire Water, for example, has a strict “presumption against burning” within its leases across the 70,000+ acres of moorland it controls. United Utilities manages large areas of the North West (including the Peak District and Bowland) and has shifted to short-term leases and introduced explicit bans on routine heather burning for tenants.
And before Betty Tree-Hugger starts screaming about the alternatives, Betty is a numpty and has never been practical, not lifted a spade in her life. Mechanical cutting requires expensive tractors, fuel, and smooth terrain, making it economically and physically impossible on steep, rocky moors. As a result, rank heather quickly chokes out forage, reducing livestock capacity and making hill farming increasingly unviable.
Even worse, the tenants are left watching fuel loads build to dangerous levels. Traditionally, low-intensity winter “cool burns” kept heather short (in a patchwork mosaic). Since restrictions took effect, unmanaged heather has grown tall, woody, and filled with dead moss and litter. Biomass (the actual fuel load) in some unmanaged moorlands has increased from 2–4 tonnes per hectare to over 10–15 tonnes per hectare. Now, as all the fire chiefs will tell you, when a wildfire ignites during hot, dry summer months in heavy fuel, it burns far hotter. Instead of a quick surface burn, high heat penetrates down into the peat itself—causing subterranean “ground fires” that can smoulder for weeks, destroy the soil seed bank, and release massive amounts of stored carbon. Indeed, the National Fire Chiefs Council has warned that flame lengths in overgrown heather can exceed 6–7 metres, making direct suppression by ground crews virtually impossible without pre-cut firebreaks.
Ultimately, tenant farmers are caught in an impossible squeeze, bearing the costs and risks of policies crafted by distant organisations with little understanding of practical upland land management and no reverse support.
The law of unintended consequences always comes into effect once ideologues simply ignore the unknown unknowns and assume, in any case, that it will be benevolent.