Some Political Aspects of the Rothschild Affair

Abstract

The Great Debate is over, or nearly so.' Public attention moves on, as it must, to new controversies, and Britain's scientific community is left to live with the customer-contractor principle.2 No doubt this principle will in practice be eroded, and in any case in five years or so it will likely be thought time to look again at the administrative structure of government research and development (R & D) in Britain. Meanwhile one can attempt a preliminary assessment of a debate which was unprecedented in the interest it aroused, and unprecedented too in the ferocity with which it was often conducted. The author has tried to deal elsewhere3 with the fundamental constitutional principle which formed the fulcrum of the debate-administrative accountability versus scientific independence-and the focus of this article is instead on the case as an instance of pressure group politics, on the role in it of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology,4 and on the part played by the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS) and its head, Lord Rothschild. However, the concept of accountability was much misconstrued in the course of the debate and it is perhaps worth devoting a little attention again here to its implications.