In the UK He is Lauded, in Australia the Prime Minister Would have Accused Him of Going Native. (November, 13, 2006)

David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville has presided over a doubling in the UK science budget.

    The Guardian reported on Friday

Academia hails 'scientists' science minister'

It's a headline that Brendan Nelson, the immediate past Minister for Education, Science and Training wouldn't even have aspired to let alone been accorded, and there is no indication that Julie Bishop, the current Minister, is significantly different.

The longest-serving minister in the Blair Labour government with the exception of Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown, Lord Sainsbury (66), cited personal, not political reasons, as the reason for his decision to step down as science minister after eight years in the job. Scientists and academics today praised Lord Sainsbury for "championing science".

The journal Nature wrote, "[His] success was founded on winning the trust and respect of the scientific community.

David Sainsbury retains a large shareholding in his family's Sainsbury's supermarket chain and has a person fortune estimated to be £1.6 billion. He took History and Psychology at King's College, Cambridge then an MBA from Columbia University.

According to  The Guardian he told an online Downing Street web chat that he was "enormously pleased" to have been science minister at a time when the government had "vastly increased" the amount of money going into scientific research and even opined that the UK was now on par with the US in terms of research performance.

"We can now point to the fact that our universities are, on all measures of innovation whether it is patents, spin-off companies or licences, producing a level of performance as good as in America. This is a major change from our past history, which has been to be good at discovery, but not good at turning this into new products and services."

While not all would agree, there is no doubt that between him and Chancellor Gordon Brown they have fostered the cause of scientific R&D in Britain dragging it from the morass engendered through the Thatcher years.

he told the Financial Times that the achievement he was most proud of as science minister was changing universities' attitude to technology transfer, so that they were now generating spin-out companies and licensing income at a comparable rate to US universities. "We gave the universities incentives for knowledge transfer and they have responded very quickly and enthusiastically," he said. "The old story that 'Britain is good at discovery and bad at exploitation' is a thing of the past."

Lord Sainsbury did agree, however, that there was a serious lack of science teachers in Britain and admitted that while he was positive about the future, "the tide was only just beginning to turn".

Among the various commentators on the "reign" of the David John Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville was Diana Warwick, the chief executive of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said the organisation was "sorry to hear this news. Lord Sainsbury's period of office covered a time of unprecedented investment in, and support for, the UK's science base. David Sainsbury has been a great champion of research in higher education, and will be a serious loss to UK science and to the university sector. He understood, he listened, and he was a very powerful advocate. We owe him a great debt."

Mark Walport, the director of the Wellcome Trust, said the minister had been "good for science and good for innovation" in the UK. "He has been an outstanding science minister and shown extraordinary passion and commitment to his portfolio," while Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of the Medical Research Council, said: "Lord Sainsbury's long and successful period as science minister has been characterised by his irrepressible love of science. He will be remembered fondly as the scientists' minister of science. Lord Sainsbury has led British science through a period of increased funding and remarkable achievement, raising even further its influence and impact throughout the world. He is hugely respected by researchers for his courage in defending science through a series of challenging public debates - particularly on stem cells and the use of animals in research."

And finally Baroness Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution, said: "Lord Sainsbury has championed science in all its aspects. He will be particularly remembered for highlighting the need for the private sector to link up with research in universities, which has enabled us to leverage basic science into applications that can offer benefits to society."

Don't worry, Brendan and Julie, no one will jeopardise your political careers by saddling you with such assessments.