Author Archives: John Thomson

How not to get impaled on Trident

By John Thomson | Mon 12th February 2007 - 7:57 am

Trident missile launchA trident has three prongs. In political terms there are three ‘prongs’ on offer now in the Trident nuclear debate.

One prong says do away with Trident altogether, and with it Britain’s allegedly ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent. Another says keep it, but offer a 20% reduction in the number of missiles (this is the option favoured by the Blair/Brown/Cameron ‘BBC’ consensus). The third prong also says keep Trident, but suggests a 50% reduction in the system’s capability.

All three options have their problems. The straightforward elimination of Trident has the advantage of being in a principled unilateralist tradition, but is not really practical politics. It is unlikely to be adopted by any of the three major parties. It would, if adopted as Government policy, leave Britain without any cards to play in subsequent nuclear disarmament talks.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | 13 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Le Grice
    I'd think the Aberdeen loss could be blamed on our failure to fight the Aberdeen south by election, a seat that we used to represent in the Scottish parliament,...
  • David Warren
    George Street/Harbour was a very tough defence because we held the last seat in a multi member STV ward there last time. I was on the phones on polling day a...
  • David Le Grice
    This seems to follow the pattern in the local elections where we did well in libdem constituencies but took a net loss everywhere else. Teignbridge for instanc...
  • Ruth Bright
    Congratulations to Abdi, Humaira, Jon, Nathan and all the Team in North Acton/Ealing. What a fantastic swing, the reward for a friendly, inclusive and super-org...
  • Paul Turnbull
    I work in architecture and construction and find this article infuriating. New high density housing is essentially being regulated out of existence. Viability w...