The UK Space Agency has been assured it still matters. Officials pat it on the head, tell it the name is staying, and then gently slide it into DSIT’s filing cabinet. On paper this is a partnership. In practice it is a custody transfer with visiting rights. Whitehall calls it “efficiency,” which is the civil service equivalent of saying “don’t ask questions.”

The grand language about cutting duplication is meant to distract from the obvious. If duplication really was the problem, half of Whitehall would already be rubble. What’s actually happening is a polite suffocation. Ministers want the joystick. Scientists and engineers get to watch and clap.