[lifeisstillgood]

This made my day however:

  has passed an independent audit from European Space 
  Agency experts, and Mr Osborne himself has inspected the 
  test rig on the Culham science park in Oxfordshire.

The ESA has verified the engine, but thank goodness, George Osbourne double checked it all, just in case those rocket scientists missed micro-fluctuations in heat transfer gradients. I mean they were probably all French anyway.

George Osbourne (UK CFO/Treasury Secretary) is getting a lot of political flack, and having his name associated with UK home grown and based innovative technology is clearly something his press office wanted the BBC to know. Who were too lazy to cut the sentence.

[colinm]

"Do you have one in green?"

[lmm]

What are you talking about? The only thing I can think of is British racing green, and that's a bit of a stretch.

[ris]

I suspect it's a reference to Osbourne probably wanting to make a weapon out of it.

[voicereason]

You clearly have something against Osborne.

The UK government are investing the money. Osborne is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why is it strange that he would be mentioned in the article as having a look at it?

He's only getting political flak from socialists and welfare claimants really - no surprise there.

[JonnieCache]

And those well known socialists, the IMF: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/18/george-osborn...

[ris]

1. Everyone's a socialist, so using it as a pejorative doesn't really work.

2. There aren't enough "welfare claimants" in this country to really have a big influence on anything themselves. The vast (vast) majority of people claiming benefits are hard working people who do 40 hour weeks but still don't earn enough to support their family, so they claim Working Tax Credits. This was Thatcher's doing, by the way.

[voicereason]

I should have remembered how Reddit this place has become.

No idea what you mean by 1. I, along with about 50% of the UK is not a socialist.

> The vast (vast) majority of people claiming benefits are hard working people who do 40 hour weeks but still don't earn enough to support their family, so they claim Working Tax Credits.

Somehow they still seem to manage to afford the big flat screen TV, iPhone, xBox etc though don't they. Funny that...

[northernmonkey]

> Somehow they still seem to manage to afford the big flat screen TV, iPhone, xBox etc though don't they. Funny that...

You're not serious? Are you?