PM

PM - Biotechnology is at the forefront of these developments. The biotech industry's market in Europe alone is expected to be worth $100 billion by 2005. The number of people employed in biotech and associated companies could be as high as three million, as we catch up with the US industry - currently eight times the size of Europe's. And Britain leads Europe: three-quarters of the biotechnology drugs in late-stage clinical trials in Europe are produced by British companies. With our excellent science base, our sophisticated capital markets and venture capital industry, the large number of skilled scientists and managers in our pharmaceuticals sector, and the investment in research by the Research Councils, Wellcome Trust and others, Britain is well placed to keep and extend its lead.

Mr Blair's position is clear, if not entirely in sympathy with some of New Labour's pre-election convictions. The PM's audience was neither representative nor critical. It expected sycophancy and it heard what it wanted to hear. But the alternative voice is loud and clear. George Monbiot, for example, observed in the Guardian: 'The earth is dying, yet those of us who spread this message are treated as dangerous and mad'. It is a cry that will be understood by millions beyond the cloistered precincts of the Royal Society. It found no echo in the PM's panegyric of science.

There was no mention in the Blair speech of Kyoto. No mention of the concerns of environmentalists and non-establishment scientists about global warming, the continuing deterioration of the ozone layer, the climate changes that cause drought and poverty over much of the earth while Europe and America wallow in riches and boast of the enhanced wealth that will come through biotechnology, if only the dissenters among us will keep quiet. Society and nature itself must bend to the will of the geneticist, the biotechnician and the civil servant.