BRITAIN'S tradition of adversarial politics does not often produce agreement between members of its warring parties. It was unusual, then, when on March 9th, Lords Sainsbury and Waldegrave, two former science ministers (Labour and Conservative respectively) joined forces to argue that science funding should be exempt from the deep public-spending cuts expected after the general election (likely on May 6th). The two ex-ministers warned that science spending was vital to Britain's economic future. “If we cut back science [funding],” Lord Sainsbury told the BBC, “we are eating the seed corn.”

It was a very public intervention in an argument that has been raging between scientists and the government for several months. In December Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, announced cuts of £600m ($907m) to the higher education and science budgets. A few days later, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which funds much of Britain's physics research, announced cuts of its own, abandoning some big telescopes, reducing funding to other experiments by 10% and slashing the number of PhD students by a quarter.

That horrified scientists, who had grown used to constantly rising budgets under the Labour government. On the same day that the two Lords made their plea, a report published by the Royal Society pointed out that Britain punches far above its weight in science: with 1% of the world's population and 3% of its research budget, Britain produces 8% of the world's scientific publications. And scientists are learning to pay their way, says the Royal Society. Traditionally, Britain has produced good science but struggled to convert its discoveries into jobs. That has changed, says the report: the number of patents granted to universities rose by 136% between 2000 and 2008. Cutting back the money now risks scientists hunkering down in their labs and abandoning their economically-useful flirtation with the world of applied research.

Much of this is dismissed as special pleading: after all, many other state-supported professions (teachers, for instance) could argue that they are vital to the future, too. And both parties have promised to spare the NHS and foreign aid budgets from cuts (Labour has promised to also protect schools and the police). Such exemptions cannot multiply indefinitely. But there are signs that the scientists may be getting a receptive hearing. Also on March 9th the Tories (who are still, just, favourites to win the election) promised to retain tax breaks for research and development. In 2006, as part of a review of the tax system, the Conservatives had indicated that they would cut them.

In these impoverished times, even such minor concessions will be welcome among scientists. The Royal Society's lobbying strategy of emphasising the links between research and economic growth is a canny one: both parties are, in theory, committed to leading the economy away from a perceived over-reliance on financial services, and Britain's strong science base makes high-tech manufacturing a politically-attractive alternative.

But there are nagging doubts. Some scientists worry that, by justifying their existence purely on economic grounds, they have made a Faustian pact: more government money in return for flashier widgets to sell at home and abroad. This is a mistake, say the purists: the truly revolutionary advances, the sort that spawn entirely new industries, come from the unfettered curiosity of researchers freed to pursue their interests without the need to satisfy the accountants. Ernest Rutherford, one of the founders of nuclear physics, could see no practical use for his discoveries; shortly after the first laser was built in 1960, it was described as “a solution in search of a problem”.

There are other arguments, too: some reckon that curiosity-driven research is more likely to inspire schoolchildren to become scientists in their turn, for instance. The most high-minded argue for funding science on the same grounds that others argue for funding the arts—a position summarised succinctly by Robert Wilson, an American physicist, who, when asked what value a new particle accelerator would have in promoting the security of his nation, replied, “It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.” They are alluring arguments, and they may even be true. But in broke Britain, scientists will have to take what they can get.