Quantum physics and how the 'coalition agreement' works
“Hi, Jon, I’m Madbiscuit (or some such), I’m one of your followers, can I have a photo with you?” I was on a train headed for Oxford. She was, young, attractive, and of perhaps South Asian ethnicity. There was a titter locally in the carriage, she got her photo, gave me a peck on the cheek, and was on her way.
I was sitting opposite a Chinese woman, with whom thus far I had had no conversation. But the Twitter encounter provoked her to question me: “Are you a singer?”
“No” I exclaimed, “I work on the news”.
She laughed, we both laughed.
To be honest, I don’t meet many of my “followers” on Twitter… in fact I don’t think I have ever been accosted by one before. I am always slightly relieved to find myself engaging with someone who hasn’t a clue what I do. So I asked the Chinese woman what she did. “I am a quantum physicist,” she said. Now there’s a conversation stopper if ever there was one. Physics? I didn’t even get an O’level in it, I had been spared going on with the subject for my own protection. But the conversation did not stop. Here was this small young woman, with an infectious sense of humour and a passion for her subject.
She had done her first degree in China and come to Oxford for her PhD. Now she was a full fledged postdoctoral researcher working in a team of twenty equally high powered former students, working on a major research project.
She lost me a bit on what it was, save that the team has in some way managed to organically liquify a naturally occurring metal, and in so doing produced a bankable energy source that could transform battery life and energy generation across the world. It is in the very final stages and will be in production within perhaps two or three years.
In her spare time my new Chinese friend organises fashion shows. “Crumbs!” I thought. And I thought too how enriching to our economy her presence in Oxford is. And then I thought about the immigration caps, and the home secretary’s promise to reduce annual “immigration” to the “tens of thousands” a year, and the impact it is already having on Indian and Chinese students trying to get visas to come and study here and potentially ‘enrich our economy’.
The next day I had the coincidental good fortune to have a meal with a Coalition Minister. I raised my train story with the politician. The Minister said very baldly and very loudly that the “reduction to the tens of thousands (articulated by Theresa May only days ago in Parliament) is certainly Conservative policy, but it is not Coalition policy”. This power wielding politician is a Conservative, but spoke as an interestingly Coalitional individual.
In one weekend I have encountered the ‘visa crisis’ that the desire to “bare down on immigration” is reportedly provoking. But I also learned much more about how the coalition works. The politician told me that the manifestos of both Coalition Parties have to be “left at the Ministerial office door”. Further, that the “Coalition Agreement” is the guiding star of Government policy. Maybe it is having an impact on the NHS reform proposals too.
Fascinating. I must take more train journeys, meet more “followers”, and try to get along to one of the young Chinese woman’s fashion shows. The quantum physics? Mmm, I think I may have to leave that at the door.