Bill Jacobs writes... BOLTON MP Brian Iddon sat in on a recent Commons debate as North-west MPs laid into the Government for its decision to site a £500 million science project in Oxfordshire rather than the region.

Led by Tory Graham Brady and Labour's Helen Southworth, they had scarcely a good word to say about the announcement.

It was branded a "kick in the teeth" for the region.

And Mr Brady said that the decision to site the Synchrotron project near Didcot in Oxfordshire, rather than replace the existing one at Daresbury near Warrington, was a "defining moment for the Government".

For once, Labour backbenchers were lining up behind him to condemn their own cabinet ministers.

Dr Iddon questioned claims by Robert Jackson, the former Science Minister whose Wantage seat covers Didcot, that there was good reason for siting all similar high level atomic particle research in and around the same place.

The Tory said that the concentration of such high tech equipment around The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory was good for British science, and increased the chances of other valuable international projects coming to the UK.

Dr Iddon said his argument was wrong, as competition between scientists and laboratories on different sites was a vital engine of progress and advancement.

But his interjections and the heartfelt pleas of Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs failed to sway Trade Minister Alan Johnson, who said the decision was irreversible.

The immediate target of the North-west MP's anger was Science Minister Lord Sainsbury.

Some believe that Prime Minister Tony Blair has played a major part in the whole affair.

Mr Jackson praised the Premier for having the courage for taking the right decision in the face of intense lobbying from his own backbenchers in the North-west.

But, he bitterly condemned the Government's handling of the decision and its dithering and delay.

It has become clear, however, in recent weeks -- and was evident in the special debate -- that Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers is largely responsible for the fiasco.

It was he, who for reasons best known to himself, having agreed to site the project in Oxfordshire, started hinting that he would prefer it to go to the North-west.

It was he who delayed, forcing the Prime Minister to intervene and take some of the flak that resulted.

And because of his comment and indecision, the simple scientific case for putting the facility in the south got lost.

But this is just the latest disaster to strike Mr Byers.

The problems over rural post offices which have caused such dismay in and around Bolton are largely due to the mishandling of the issue by his department.

His aborted "Rip Off Britain" campaign to prevent profiteering had degenerated into an embarrassing shambles.

And the disembowelling of his Bill to regulate the privatised utilities, such as water, telecoms, gas, and electricity, has left him looking like a lame duck at Westminster.

But the final nail in his coffin may be his disastrous handling, and, once again, dithering over BMW's break up of Rover.

With the German company claiming that they warned him of what was happening, and of it British subsidiaries huge losses, Mr Byers professions of ignorance and allegations of "Teutonic" betrayal, sound a little hollow.

Many MPs feel that whether he was told in so many words or not, as a senior and supposedly capable politician, he should have seen it coming.

His one-time Tory shadow, John Redwood, summed up the mood at Westminster by calling for Mr Byers to quit.

For once this is a view shared by many Labour MPs and ministers. The betting in the Houses of Parliament is that Mr Byers will be the first of the rising new Blairite ministers to come a cropper, and join some Old Labour MPs on the political scrap heap.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.