Tag Archives: trident

Toby Fenwick

Opinion: It’s time to scrap Trident

By Toby Fenwick | Thu 8th March 2012 - 11:56 am

The world is a better place because of the role Britain plays internationally through aid, diplomacy and, when necessary, using force sanctioned by international law. It is worth remembering the many Libyans and Sierra Leoneans who are alive today because of the actions of Britain’s forces.

Yet at a time when the government is preparing to spend at least £25 billion on replacing our Trident nuclear weapons, it is making cuts to the conventional forces that make such interventions possible. There have been £74 billion of defence cuts to date, with another £3-5 billion due to be announced before the Easter …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged and | 20 Comments
Kate Hudson

The Independent View: MoD suppresses Lib Dem review and spending information on Trident ahead of Parliamentary decision

By Kate Hudson | Thu 8th December 2011 - 9:28 am

Liberal Democrats can be rightly proud of their record on challenging like-for-like Trident replacement and keeping Britain’s nuclear weapons near the top of the political agenda – certainly during the last general election campaign. But now it looks as though their coalition partners are moving to stifle the gains they have made. Not only has the Defence Secretary announced the suppression of the Lib Dem-led Trident Alternatives Review. He is also making a mockery of the delayed Trident replacement decision – scheduled for 2016 – by committing to spend £6 billion before that decision date. This is hardly fair play …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , , , , , and | 18 Comments
Mark Pack

Liberal Democrat members support proposed changes to planning rules, just

By Mark Pack | Fri 7th October 2011 - 7:25 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

Our latest survey of party members finds a small majority backing the government’s controversial plans for the planning system in England. By a margin of 48% – 39% Liberal Democrat members in the survey supported the scheme to cut central control over planning but also introduce a presumption in favour of development if plans are sustainable and in line with local policies.

However, …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , , , , and | 5 Comments
Kate Hudson

The Independent View: Alternatives to Trident replacement must include the possibility of no nuclear weapons

By Kate Hudson | Sat 28th May 2011 - 12:23 pm

Since Liam Fox made his announcement last week that while Trident replacement design is going ahead, the Lib Dems will also be looking at alternatives, there has been a flurry of derision about the latter initiative. Most obviously this comes from Liam Fox and the hard–line pro-nuclear lobby who just want to rubbish it. But criticism of Lib Dem efforts also comes from some anti-nuclear quarters and I am not convinced that this is totally reasonable.

From my point of view, it would be very easy to have a pop at the Lib Dem leadership for not backing CND’s maximum programme …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , and | 13 Comments
Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes on Trident: We don’t need to keep fighting the Cold War

By Julian Huppert | Wed 18th May 2011 - 3:53 pm

I have believed for a long time that we don’t want nuclear weapons, we can’t afford them, and they weaken our moral authority to persuade other people not to obtain them. I proposed the emergency motion on this which we passed last year.

So how do I feel after today’s statement on the Initial Gate for Trident replacement?

Disappointed – but also encouraged and heartened by what we have achieved. Nick Harvey, our Minister, has helped to secure a 25% reduction in the overall number of warheads, and cost reductions to ease the financial burden. But this is not enough to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Harvey talks up closer nuclear cooperation with the French

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st April 2011 - 2:53 pm

In a speech yesterday Minister for the Armed Forces Nick Harvey both showed how ministers can stake out clearly different ground from the Conservatives and also gave a hint of major debates over nuclear weapons yet to come.

In his speech to the Franco-British Council Defence Co-operation Conference Nick Harvey said,

As you will know, the two parties in the UK coalition Government have a different approach to the renewal of the current Trident system, but we are jointly pledged to maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent…

As a Liberal Democrat Minister in this UK Coalition Government, I have the freedom to explore and argue

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Kate Hudson

The Independent View: We cannot have back-door Trident replacement

By Kate Hudson | Mon 21st February 2011 - 10:37 am

Delaying the decision, on whether or not to replace Trident, until 2016, has been the best bit of news to come out of the coalition government. This was announced, to the delight and relief of many, in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) last October.Of crucial importance, it makes Trident a general election issue – a fact, as Nick Harvey has stated, ‘of huge political significance’. Indeed, it holds out the possibility of defeat for a new generation of nuclear weapons. Given that the majority of the population has for some time backed scrapping Trident, this …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , , and | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: Does Britain need nuclear weapons?

By Mark Pack | Sat 22nd January 2011 - 8:55 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

One of the achievements of the Liberal Democrats in Coalition Government so far has been to ensure that no Trident replacement is orders during this Parliament. At the next election the party will be able to say, “We said we opposed Labour and Tory plans for replacing Trident – and those plans haven’t happened”. But is that going far enough; should Britain retain nuclear weapons at all – and if not, when and how should it give them up?

Agree? Disagree? Post your …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 47 Comments
Mark Pack

Trident: no renewal this Parliament

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th October 2010 - 9:53 pm

The BBC reports that the predicted policy has won the day:

The government says £750m ($1.2bn) will be saved over four years on the Trident nuclear deterrent missile system by cutting the number of warheads on each boat from 48 to 40 and reducing the number of missile tubes from 12 to eight. The UK’s nuclear warhead stockpile will be cut from 160 to less than 120. The final “main gate” spending decision on Trident will also be delayed until 2016 – after the next general election.

Party President Ros Scott has emailed party members, saying

Trident will not be renewed

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 15 Comments
Stephen Tall

Huhne scorns tax breaks for married couples as “flag-waving”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th October 2010 - 3:58 pm

Today’s Telegraph has an in-depth interview with the Lib Dems’ climate change and energy secretary Chris Huhne, in which he expertly steers the tightrope of punchily sticking up for party policy while sticking well within collective responsibility.

Somewhat bizarrely, both the BBC and the Torygraph are leading on the least contentious part of the interview, in which Chris points out that the Coalition will adjust economic policy according to circumstances and forecasts:

“I’ve never known one Treasury Red Book to be exactly like the last one. There is always a change. It is a bit like setting sail. If the

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference: the full-time score

By Mark Pack | Sun 26th September 2010 - 9:20 am

Having blogged ten questions for Liberal Democrat conference, along with a conference half-time update, how do things look now the dust has settled from Liverpool for those ten points?

Party strategy

Love your coalition partner all the time in public: that was the clear line taken by Nick Clegg, reinforced by other senior party figures and not challenged directly in any high profile way during conference (save for one question during the Nick Clegg Q&A). And yet… whether or not the party should let its strong debates with the Conservatives within the coalition show a little more in public was …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 9 Comments
Linda Jack

So how was it for you?

By Linda Jack | Fri 24th September 2010 - 9:05 am

Well fellow Lib Dems, Bloggers and Tweeps… what did you make of conference then? Having been granted the honour of being “Guest Editor” (quaking in me boots it has to be said!) I thought, given the timing, it may be an opportunity to reflect on the last week in Liverpool.

What I want to do is to try and get a feel from members across the spectrum of our party, has conference left them feeling uplifted, confused, motivated, anxious, hopeful, proud?
I hope what follows today, especially for those of you who weren’t there, will give you a bit of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 27 Comments
The Voice

Lib Dems pass motions on Trident and diversity

By The Voice | Wed 22nd September 2010 - 3:27 pm

News of two motions passed by Lib Dem conference today…

Diversity: Hughes to propose “radical changes” to promote candidate diversity

Simon Hughes, the party’s deputy leader, commented:

“I am glad that Conference agreed today that there will be a full set of proposals for candidate diversity and that we will have the chance to take decisions to change the face and mix of the Liberal Democrats.

“I will be presenting a paper to the Party’s Federal Executive next month which will propose radical changes in the way we select our candidates.

“This proposal will include the aim that half our candidates will be women …

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference: the half-time score

By Mark Pack | Mon 20th September 2010 - 2:27 pm

At the start of conference, I blogged the ten issues that I thought would shape conference. Half-way through, how are things looking on the ten?

  1. Strategy: the party’s official line of loving our coalition partners in public has been firmly stuck to by the party’s senior figures, and argued for by Nick Clegg during Q+A at the weekend. Bubbling under the surface are many questions about whether this is the right strategy and if the party could and would be better if it more often made public its disagreements, such as over the opting out of the EU directive

…

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Posted in Conference, Op-eds and Party Presidency | Also tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Ten questions for conference

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th September 2010 - 9:26 am

Doomed!It’s a fair bet that much of the media coverage of Liberal Democrat conference will be of the form ‘THEY’RE DOOMED!’, with the more subtle coverage for the more discerning journalists being ‘Are they doomed?’.

That has, after all, been the standard media fare since long before the Coalition, since before Nick Clegg became an MP, since before David Cameron became an MP, since before Tony Blair become Labour leader and since before John Major became Prime Minister. My money isn’t on the old standard formula changing this time round for …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Poll: Less than 1 in 10 party members support like-for-like Trident replacement

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th September 2010 - 6:07 pm

An opinion poll of over 500 Liberal Democrat party members carried out by YouGov for Greenpeace has found that 7% said they supported a like-for-like replacement of Trident.

The key question asked was:

As you may know, there is currently debate about whether or not the UK should replace its Trident nuclear weapons system. Current policy is to replace the Trident submarines with a new fleet of boats, and to replace the ballistic nuclear missiles they carry at a later date. Which of the following options would you favour most?

Replace Trident with a broadly comparable system: 7%
Replace Trident with a cheaper system: …

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Posted in News and Polls | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

BBC: Government set to delay Trident decision for five years

By Mark Pack | Wed 15th September 2010 - 10:08 pm

The BBC is reporting that the Government is set to put off a decision on replacing Trident until after the next general election. This move would both assist government finances over this Parliament and would sidestep the division on the Trident in the coalition which pits Liberal Democrats and some Conservatives against Defence Secretary Liam Fox and other Conservatives.

Posted in News | 27 Comments
Mark Pack

Clegg backs graduate tax in Telegraph interview

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st August 2010 - 11:10 am

Credit where credit is due, today’s Telegraph interview with Nick Clegg covers a range of substantive policy issues and gives the Deputy Prime Minister the space to give nuanced answers where the question requires them.

The biggest story is Clegg’s clear steer on a graduate tax as the way to square financial demands with the party’s dislike of tuition fees:

While David Willetts, the universities minister, said this week that it was for Lord Browne’s ongoing study to recommend increased tuition fees or a tax, Mr Clegg comes down firmly for the latter. “ children are very intimidated by levels of

…

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Helen Duffett

LibLink… Shirley Williams on the coalition: Not one bed – two beds

By Helen Duffett | Sat 14th August 2010 - 4:50 pm

The Guardian today has an interview with Shirley Williams, who at 80, continues to work full-time and is active in questioning the coalition government’s stance on academies, health and Trident:

If you give up what you most care about you start dying. It doesn’t matter what age.

Debate within the coalition on the key issues is a positive thing, insists Williams:

What we have to do is get as much as one possibly can of what Lib Dems believe into the coalition programme. It’s no good simply saying our role is to say no to everything.

Williams admits her surprise that the Liberal Democrats, of whom she was a founder, formed a coalition with the Conservative Party.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , , , and | 8 Comments
The Voice

Ming: Trident must be included in Strategic Defence Review

By The Voice | Fri 30th July 2010 - 3:02 pm

A press release arrives in the Lib Dem Voice in-tray:

Commenting on George Osborne’s announcement that the Ministry of Defence will be responsible for the cost of replacing Trident, Liberal Democrat MP, Sir Menzies Campbell said:

“This confirmation of what had already been predicted makes it essential that the case for like-for-like replacement of Trident should, as the Liberal Democrats have agreed, be part of the Strategic Defence Review.

“How can you possibly take on such a large financial commitment as Trident without considering the military and political implications?

“If fierce cuts are to be made in Britain’s conventional forces, surely we have

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 24 Comments
Mark Pack

The battle over Trident

By Mark Pack | Tue 20th July 2010 - 2:20 pm

At the time the coalition government was negotiated, Trident looked to be one of the most contentious policy areas for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to agree on. However, for all the barbed Cameron – Clegg exchanges over Trident during the election, it now looks as if the biggest tensions on the issue are coming from within the Conservative Party.

In my series of posts reviewing the content of the coalition document, I pointed out the compromise it contained on Trident:

It will be replaced unless there is a better value for money alternative. What the wording leaves unclear is the

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

What next on Trident?

By Mark Pack | Sun 11th July 2010 - 10:47 pm

The previous Labour government had a habit of taking as gospel views from senior members of select professions. Whilst many professions were instinctively seen as self-interested dinosaurs when speaking up for their professions, both senior police and senior military were however often treated as if unimpeachable experts.

It’s been a welcome sign from both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat members of the new government that senior military are seen as they should be – often expert, certainly experienced but by no means infallible and often to be questioned. That’s the right attitude, but it’s one that is clearly ruffling some feathers …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: defence and deficit reduction

By Mark Pack | Wed 26th May 2010 - 4:45 pm

Welcome to the sixth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

Despite the importance of the two areas, these are two of the shortest sections in the agreement, reflecting how there are a small number of dominating issues.

For defence there is the Trident compromise – it will be replaced unless there is a better value for money alternative. What the wording leaves unclear is the extent to which any alternative has to meet Trident like-for-like in terms of destructive power and constant instant availability. Whether …

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Iain Roberts

Did Trident, Europe and immigration make the difference?

By Iain Roberts | Sat 8th May 2010 - 10:43 am

We all know the Lib Dems achieved a result we would have been reasonably happy with at the start of the campaign, but one that came as a bitter disappointment after the highs of Cleggmania.

But why did the Lib Dem vote fall back to 23%, seemingly at the last gasp?

Speaking to Lib Dem supporters on the doorstep in the last week, I was struck by how often the issues of Trident, Europe and immigration came up – and our supporters were genuinely concerned.

In the main, it wasn’t that people disagreed with our policies when I took a couple of minutes …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged | 41 Comments
Malcolm Wood

Opinion: A weapon we could use?

By Malcolm Wood | Thu 22nd April 2010 - 11:36 am

When Nick Clegg made the case for scrapping Trident in Thursday’s debate, his case was that it was too expensive, and designed for a threat that no longer exists. And the predictable response was to accuse Nick of being soft on defence. But there are more fundamental problems with the type of defence offered by Trident.

Trident provides “defence” only in a very limited sense. It’s actually just a “deterrent”. It can’t shoot down incoming missiles or turn back advancing enemy armies. Its point is to dissuade an enemy from attacking us in the first …

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Posted in Op-eds | 49 Comments
Bryn Evans

The truth about Lib Dem policy

By Bryn Evans | Tue 20th April 2010 - 7:36 pm

Since Nick Clegg’s success in Thursday’s TV debate, there have been incredible comments made by high-profile Labour and Conservative politicians that have led to questions about how seriously the establishment takes the Liberal Democrats.

On Friday, Michael Gove called the Lib Dems “eccentric” and “outside the mainstream”, and Bob Ainsworth called their policy on Trident “silly”.

How can a political party with 20-30% of voters supporting them be eccentric and outside of the mainstream? Many Labour and Conservative policies could be seen as just that.

The suggestions of not replacing Trident, an amnesty for long-term illegal immigrants and cutting class sizes …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 15 Comments
Dom Newton

A new party in Defence of the Realm?

By Dom Newton | Sat 17th April 2010 - 5:20 pm

I was really pleased to hear Nick Clegg raise the issue of Trident and the treatment of our troops during the first TV debate. For too long, the defence debate has been dominated by the Tories, claiming to be the only party who understands defence, and Labour who are happy to use troops but aren’t interested in where they live, how much they’re paid or what happens to them when they get home.

Successive defence reviews in the 1990s tore the heart out of the military without really addressing the key issue of what armed forces are used for …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Trident: what’s the Lib Dem alternative?

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th April 2010 - 10:50 am

Scrapping the Government’s plans for a “like for like” replacement for Trident is one of the most frequently mentioned examples of savings Vince Cable and the Liberal Democrats would make. But what would the party do instead?

Nick Clegg addressed that in his Radio 4 interview yesterday:

What we’re saying is there are a number of options that you could explore in the future… you could equip the Astute submarine. What we’ve done is, I asked Menzies Campbell to look at the range of options and he’s published a number of options simply to make the point which the other parties won’t

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem, Labour, Tory voters all say: scrap Trident

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th September 2009 - 7:45 pm

The Independent has the story:

The public wants Britain to scrap the Trident nuclear missile system but believes spending on health and education should rise each year, according to a ComRes poll for The Independent. By a margin of 58 to 35 per cent, people believe that the £25bn renewal of the Trident programme should be abandoned because of the state of the public finances.

Nick Clegg announced back in June his intention to ask the party conference to rule out like-for-like Trident replacement, arguing that the recession made it unaffordable and the political situation made it unnecessary.

The Indy notes that supporters of all three main parties support scrapping Trident:

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
The Voice

Clegg: Brown’s “staggering chaos and confusion” on Trident

By The Voice | Fri 17th July 2009 - 6:20 pm

The BBC has the story:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has attacked government “chaos and confusion” over renewing the Trident missile system. No 10 has insisted the timetable for renewing Trident is unchanged. But earlier, officials implied that key decisions would be put off until May 2010 ahead of a conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mr Clegg said the prime minister should make a “climbdown” and admit the missile system was not justified given equipment shortages in Afghanistan. In a statement, Downing Street said there had been “no change” in the government position that Trident would be renewed.

Here’s Nick’s …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments
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