Stem Cells are the Future!

The House of Commons has just voted down a cross-party attempt, led by arch Conservative Edward Leigh, to ban the use of hybrid human-animal embryos. Good. The Bush administration may have been highly successful in its anti-science polemic, but I'll be damned if it gets exported here.

Mr Leigh (Gainsborough) said the use of "admixed" embryos, using genetic material from both humans and animals, would cross an "entirely new ethical boundary," and turn the UK into a scientific "rogue state".

For those who don't know, Edward Leigh is the rabidly anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-contraception Tory former minister, famous for being sacked because of his opposition to the Maastricht Treaty (so anti-Europe too). And he's failed at blocking stem cell research, failed at blocking 'saviour siblings', in addition to his legion of other failures at codifying bigotry and backwardness in law. I'm tempted to start on Ruth Kelly too, but maybe that's just too easy...