The British astronomy community is bracing itself for bad news due to arrive tomorrow from its funding council, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, or STFC. Since its creation in 2007, STFC appears to have stumbled from one crisis to the next. An announcement will be made by the council tomorrow about deep cuts in the astronomy budget to fill a 70 million pound hole that has resulted from increased contributions to ESA on the one hand, and a debt that needs to be repayed to the government dating back to the merger that created STFC in 2007.

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