Skip to main content

Trident - where next

A clear majority of the audience on "Any Questions" (BBC Radio 4) on 16th March disagreed with the House of Commons' vote on 14th March to begin work on replacing the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system. If the audience was a representative sample of public opinion, then either the New Labour and Conservative leadership had a mistaken belief about public opinion, or they calculated that they could get away with ignoring it because the public did not perceive this issue as a high priority.
We're not gonna make it, are we? - people I mean (as John said in Terminator 2). Maybe we don't deserve to, if we don't think this issue is a high priority. Replacing Trident will ensure the future that we most want to avoid - international proliferation of these weapons. And the more of them there are, the more likely they will get used. And they mustn't be used. And that is why the Conservatives and New Labour are so wrong on this.
I think the public do perceive the issue as a high priority. But if they don't, the political leaderships need not be timid on it.
The sanest thing to do is not to encourage proliferation. Hence we should (1) not replace Trident and (2) get rid of the UK's nuclear weapons now.
If New Labour and Conservative MPs won't reverse their decision to replace Trident, we had better change the MPs. On with my leafletting boots I suppose...
Oh and by the way, before anyone accuses me of being unpatriotic, let me get my Cicero quote in first: "When you have run out of arguments, insult the Defendant."

Comments

David said…
Welcome to blogging, Jo. Cicero also wrote in "De Officiis": "For nothing can be expedient which is not at the same time morally right; neither can a thing be morally right just because it is expedient, but it is expedient because it is morally right". Tell that to FPC !
22 March 2007 at 18:27
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iran: the minority that will not let go

I am thinking about places in the world where women are oppressed. Iran for example. There, I gather, militia roam the streets intimidating and attacking women who behave or dress in ways of which they disapprove. In my country, such militia would be arrested and tried for public order offences. It is not that the British have no opinions about what is acceptable dress or behaviour in public and what is not. Of course we have opinions. But individuals behave in a way that is their own choice, provided that it does not contravene a specific law, and it may be a poor choice, but it is the individual's and not imposed. Live and let live, and mind your own business, are mottos here. And gangs who roam the streets trying to impose their own ideas on others tend to get arrested. So what essentially is different about Iranians? I suspect, nothing is. A minority of society suppose they have a superior social and ethical code but that is normal in any society. The trouble is tha
9 comments
Read more

Clegg on school vouchers - the evidence

Did Nick Clegg endorse school vouchers or didn't he? Well, the evidence that he did is rather strong. Not only Rachel Sylvester in the Telegraph on 29 October but also self-confessed Clegg fan Jasper Gerard, writing up an “exclusive interview” in the Observer on 21 October, state that he did. Gerard writes, quoting Clegg: "'I want a sense of empowerment on a daily basis for people accessing health care and good education.' Well that's clear. But he differs from free marketeer Tories in that 'having lived in Europe and had children born in hospitals in Europe, they have a far greater sense of equity in health and education. It is not like a supermarket but the patient, pupil or parent has entitlements which the provider of services has to meet.' So according to his 'pupil premium', parents would be given a voucher to spend in their preferred school; but while a flaw in such schemes is often that the savvy middle class pack the best schools, Clegg
23 comments
Read more

Forgotten Chernobyl? I haven't

It is as if the entire Government has forgotten the Chernobyl disaster - because it is too inconvenient to tell the public to contemplate a reduction in "living standards". Well, here is a reminder. From The Guardian: "When a routine test went catastrophically wrong, a chain reaction went out of control in No 4 reactor of Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, creating a fireball that blew off the reactor's 1,000-tonne steel-and-concrete lid. Burning graphite and hot reactor-core material ejected by the explosions started numerous other fires, including some on the combustible tar roof of the adjacent reactor unit. There were 31 fatalities as an immediate result of the explosion and acute radiation exposure in fighting the fires, and more than 200 cases of severe radiation sickness in the days that followed. Evacuation of residents under the plume was delayed by the Soviet authorities' unwillingness to admit the gravity of the incident. Eventually, more tha
5 comments
Read more