We know that Jeremy Corbyn would not launch a nuclear strike. On Wednesday, he needs to be the first person ever to pose that question to David Cameron. It also needs to be asked of George Osborne, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, anyone else who might want to succeed Cameron, and each of Corbyn’s critics in his own party: “Would you ever launch a nuclear strike?” (“Under what circumstances?” would be a follow-up question.) This, a yes/no, needs to be the starter for 10. No 10.
David Lindsay
Lanchester, County Durham
When has unilateral disarmament ever worked? Would be the ideal response.
ReplyDeleteFollowed by: what would your defence be against a nuclear-armed power that threatened us?
There are far cheaper alternatives to Trident (which was designed to pierce the ballistic-missile shield around Moscow).
Why not invest in the many alternative nuclear-weapons systems used by states that have far smaller economies than ours?
Peter Hitchens rightly suggested nuclear-tipped cruise missiles (used by many states) or switching our nuclear deterrent from the Royal Navy to the RAF.
Both easily affordable.
If Pakistan and North Korea can afford nukes, then so can the sixth largest economy in the world.
Of course we can.
None of that is the question.
DeleteYou have always known that, if a proper debate were ever allowed on this, then you would lose it. You might win the bovine parliamentary vote. But you'd lose the debate hands down.
That is now happening.
Those are the questions the ban-the-bomb loons could never answer.
ReplyDeleteThey were dangerously wrong during the Cold War (we would have been naked in the face of a nuclear-armed empire and subject to nuclear blackmail if we had done their bidding) and they are wrong now.
If Pakistan, North Korea and Israel can afford nukes, then so can the sixth biggest economy on Earth.
Trident is too expensive and was designed for another era.
Well, that's easily solved. Let's switch to a cheaper alternative, then.
As proposed by absolutely no one. Well, apart from one newspaper columnist. Have you ever stopped to think that there might be a reason for that?
DeleteWe could and do afford all sorts of things that we shouldn't have.
And of course the opponents of nuclear weapons were right about the Soviet Union. That has been an established fact for over 20 years.
Was PH still a Trot when he went there? If not, he had only very recently parted company with them. Those were the eyes through which he saw what he saw. Shame he still does. Enoch saw through the whole thing from the start.
DeleteThe New Statesman noted the capacity for a far cheaper British nuclear deterrent-as suggested by Peter Hitchens-back in 2015.
ReplyDeleteThe NS noted: Today, CentreForum has published a paper outlining how a simpler – and much less costly – system can provide the UK with a credible, minimum, independent nuclear deterrent.
The proposal uses a British-built version of the new US B61-12 thermonuclear bomb being developed for NATO, delivered by the UK’s forthcoming F-35 Joint Strike Fighters operating from land bases and from the Royal Navy’s new carriers. The weapons would be based in existing facilities at RAF Marham, Norfolk and RAF Honington, Suffolk, removing all nuclear weapons from Scotland in the process.
Dual-role systems offer two clear advantages. First, the nuclear mission could free-ride on much of the capital and operating costs of the conventional forces. It would significantly reduce costs.
Second, a dual-role system is a clear step down the nuclear ladder in both cost and capability terms. This means that as and when the international climate allows for multilateral disarmament, the UK won’t waste the investment in the F-35 aircraft, which can continue to operate in their conventional role.""
We could easily afford it.
This is how we should update our nuclear deterrent.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/there-cheaper-credible-alternative-trident
Even David Cameron is not making that case. His only argument is the "jobs" one, which does necessitate this level of spending, and which does not even purport to have anything to do with defence.
DeleteAnon.
ReplyDeleteNothing to do with Trotskyism-he defends the modern Russia, though he acknowledges it remains corrupt and tyrannical, preciseely because it's no longer the USSR.
It was Hitchens experience of life under socialist and communist regimes that made him part company with the Left.
He's written about this epiphany many times, and said the Soviet Union should have been preserved as a museum to warn the West against the dangers of leftism.
Pity we've forgotten.
He went to the Soviet Union from a Trotskyist background. That's a very special experience, typical or representative of nothing except itself.
DeleteHitchens recognises the Blairites as Trots-the Equality Act was dubbed "socialism in a single clause" by a Labour Minister and it was listed alongside the NHS by Jeremy Corbyn, in a recent speech, as among Labour's greatest achievements.
ReplyDeleteThis is the Marxist Act under which Christians in the public and private sector are sacked, fined or stripped of their foster children if they defy any tenet of political correctness.
Even if they merely refuse to express the 'correct' view (as in the case of Christian foster parents Eunice and Owen Jones, permanently stripped of their right to care for children).
As Hitchens and others have observed, the purpose of the Labour legislation wasn't really equality, but the de-privileging of previously privileged institutions (such as our established religion and the institution of marrriage) by granting them nothing more than equal status with everything else.
This Marxist legislation-praised by Jeremy Corbyn- is the product of a Labour Government that dimwits still think was "Tory" and "moderate."
It was in reality, as Peter Hyman recently wrote, far more radical than Corbyn.
Hitchens recognises the Blairites as Trots
DeleteHe would never make that mistake. They are Gramscian Eurocommunists. Something very, very different, indeed. As he knows, inside out.