The BBC reports that Britain's involvment in the Gemini Telescope programme is about to end.
Despite the fact that we've contibuted over £70m already and that the project's almost finished the powers that be have decided to end our involvement. This will incur a fine of £8m and mean that we will have no access to the two telescopes when they are complete. Others have suggested we carry on with a view to renting out time with the facility as a method of recoupment; this suggestion was turned down for no apparent reason.
So we can afford £25 billion on Northern Rock, which happened because various government quangos were not doing their job, £10+ billion on the Olympics which are an ephemeral event and God knows how much on the Iraq war but can write-off £78m to save what appears to be £15m on a long-lasting astronomical facility.