I think that a lot of this has to do with how science and scientists are viewed by everyone else. I'll use the media as an example, because it conveys my point well.

There are many fictional scientist antagonists roaming TV shows, cartoons, movies, comics and books. Lex Luthor, Mojo Jojo, Dr. No, Dr. Doom, Dr. Octopus, Dr. Neo Cortex, etc. What happens to the scientist protagonists? Reed Richards, Bruce Banner and Frankenstein all conduct experiments which go horribly wrong. See a pattern here? The overall message the media is putting out to the world is that science is bad. The UK protested so strongly against nuclear power stations partly because of the atom bomb, and partly because of Dr. No in a James Bond film.

The scientists themselves do nothing to combat the unfortunate scientist stereotype of wild hair, mildly antisocial and generally uncool. Of course, there are some that simply ooze coolness, but have you seen the guy's hair in the above video? When the physicists discovered quarks, they decided to assign to them 'colours' and 'flavours', despite the fact that colour and flavour have nothing to do with anything. The six flavours are up, down, bottom, top, strange and charm. To most people who aren't as into science as the scientists themselves, this is just weird. It seems as though the physicists have 'gone cute', like they think of quarks as pets or something. Of course, we know that they named them as such to be able to explain them better, but they've shot themselves in the foot. They could have named them like the elements, which have epic names such as krypton and calcium. Next time, we should hold a poll over the Internet.

Of course we should fund education, but politicians tend to think in the short term, as they aren't in power for very long. Educating the people has huge advantages in the long term, but is anyone surprised that David Cameron is trying to make the country better in the short term? Hence this unfortunate mess.