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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 !

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