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Although it was by far the most visible thing we did, the Science is Vital rally was never intended to be the only event. It was, more than anything, a publicity stunt designed to rally support and to send a message to the Treasury that we were serious. There was, as you might expect from a bunch of geeks, a lot of blog coverage but we were also pleased to get into some mainstream media (scroll down and see the comments). The rally was also apparently reported, before and after the event, on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 4.

From the start of the campaign we have been encouraging people to write to their Members of Parliament, and on Tuesday afternoon we managed to cram over 100 constituents and two dozen MPs into the largest committee room in the House of Commons. Speeches were given by Dr Jennifer Rohn, Imran Khan, Professor Colin Blakemore and the MPs David Morris (Conservative) and Julian Huppert (Lib-Dem). The Director General of Science and Research, Professor Adrian Smith, read out a statement from Vince Cable. While I was waiting for my MP to turn up (he never did, by the way) I was able to announce to the room that the petition had hit 33,000 signatures.

The following day I took the petition data (we’d set a cut-off at 1.30 PM for signatures to be included in the delivery to Downing Street), removed duplicate signatures and blank lines, and sent the file, containing 33,804 names, to CaSE HQ for printing. And on Thursday morning, together with Jenny, Imran, Colin, Michelle Brook, Della Thomas, Evan Harris and Lord Phil Willis I queued in front of Downing Street to deliver it. After clearing security we went up to the UK’s most famous door, knocked, and handed it over.

There was a bit of tomfoolery before that, of course. We had our pictures taken, chatted with the policeman on duty and generally made a bit of a scene for the press cameras that are permanently on duty there. Evan kept telling us to look serious, but to be honest it was bloody difficult keeping the grin off my face. There was a tinge of disappointment that we’d only managed to recruit one Peer and no MPs, although that was mitigated by the knowledge that David Willetts was that morning taking questions in the House of Commons.

And then, while I was talking to the camera for Newton.tv, something very interesting indeed happened.

David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, wanted to see us. We broke for breakfast in a cafe on Whitehall, then walked down the road to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills offices on Victoria Street. There followed a private meeting with the Minister, which I’m not allowed to report on, except to say it was productive and positive.

What struck me was that a month ago all we had was a bunch of tweets and a rapidly dashed-off blog post. Since then we’d mobilized the scientific community, recruited some major names, got coverage in the press, organized and held a rally in London, and in less than three weeks gathered nearly 35,000 names on a petition. And here we were talking to a minister in the UK Government, making our voices heard.

It’s not over yet. The Comprehensive Spending Review is next week, and we are still lobbying MPs with the message that cutting basic research will harm economic recovery, let alone what it will do to the scientific infrastructure in this country. The future is still looking shaky and only time will tell, but for a moment on a grey Thursday in London, we believed we were making a difference.