Lib Dem Fudge and Fall-Out

We had the first proper hustings of the Gordon campaign last night in Ellon Academy, organised by the community council. A good couple of hundred people turned out to hear a wide ranging debate on subjects ranging from the current economic situation to how the various parties would approach a parliament where no party had an overall majority.

However, one issue dominated, whether the subject was defence or the economy, and that was the future of Britain's nuclear 'deterrent'. As you'd expect, both myself and the Green were against a £100bn Trident replacement, while Labour and the Conservatives were in favour. The curiosity was the Lib Dem position, which claims to be against a 'like for like' replacement.



It smacks of a classic Lib Dem attempt to be all things to all people, allowing them to hear exactly what they want. To those who support nuclear weapons, it gives the impression that the Lib Dems are in favour of a British nuclear weapons system – just not Trident. Meanwhile, to those who support doing away with British nuclear weapons, it can give the impression that just like you, the Lib Dems also support disarmament.

The fact is that it is the first of those statements which represents their real position - the Lib Dems support British possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Which begs the question – if not Trident, then what delivery system would they have in its place?

It's worth taking a short walk through the history of British nuclear weapons at this point, and why we arrived at having a submarine based system. Initially, British weapons were freefall bombs, deployed by the RAF using V-class bombers. However, bombers are vulnerable to counter measures, whether by opposing fighters or surface to air missiles. For that reason, a number of missile-based systems were considered instead.

The trouble with both bombers and land based missiles in the UK, however, is that both are highly vulnerable to a first strike from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This made submarines, which can remain mobile, undetected, launch their missiles while underwater and survive a nuclear attack on the UK, the obvious method of delivery. Although the UK retained a stockpile of 'tactical' freefall nuclear bombs well into the 1990's, so it was that first Polaris, then Trident, became the main means of delivery.

But back to the Lib Dems. If the UK were to have a nuclear weapons system which was not Trident or similar, it would need to involve a new fleet of bombers or land based missiles, both of which would retain exactly the same vulnerabilities which led to the adoption of Polaris. With international treaties prohibiting the use of either outer space or the sea bed for the deployment of nuclear weapons, a submarine based system remains the only practical option.

A cruise-missile based system could be adopted, although the range of cruise is considerably shorter at 3,000 miles than the present Trident system at 7,000 miles. Cruise is also limited in the size of warhead it can deploy. A ballistic-based missile system therefore continues to provide the greatest flexibility.

If a ballistic system is chosen, then that clearly requires a class of submarine capable of launching the missiles. If the deterrent is to be operative 24/7/365, then four vessels, as are available presently, will also be needed. It's a brutal, grim logic, but given the infrastructure already in place, a variation on the present Trident system will be far and away the cheapest and most effective option if you wish to retain a British nuclear weapons system with the current capability of being able to ride out attack, and also be able to attack or retaliate anywhere in the world.



From a personal point of view, I believe that replacing Trident risks leaving us both financially and morally bankrupt, while offering us little or nothing in the way of tangible security benefits. No matter how many anti-nuclear votes the Lib Dems might think they can harvest on the sly, or what they might like us to believe regarding the chimera of cheaper alternatives, there really is no clever-clever alternative out there waiting to be discovered by Menzies Campbell and his 'review' which has been hitherto overlooked by lesser mortals.

Ultimately, the decision about whether or not to possess WMD is a matter of principle and not tactics. Maybe that's why the Lib Dems are having such difficulty wrestling with it.

Wrong Korea Move

Oh dear. No sooner had Alex Salmond suggested that the Scottish Government should seek observer status in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty talks scheduled for next spring, and Pavlov's dog, AKA David Cairns, started yapping:

"Another week, another conflict. Alex Salmond prefers posturing on the world stage to delivering on bread-and-butter issues. He should be funding 1,000 extra police officers and sorting out the mess over free personal care. Instead he seeks to cavort across the world stage with his discredited looney left policies."

Yes, David. Nuclear disarmament will be the same 'discredited, looney left policy' to which your party membership commits itself every time it gets the chance; which is supported by a majority of your party's Scottish MPs and MSPs; which is supported by a majority of Scots and which is also supported by the Catholic Church. You know, the church in which you were once ordained as a priest...

But I wonder who the 'Scottish Office source' could be, who offered the following asinine comment: "For Alex Salmond to seek an alliance with Iran and South Korea is an unpardonable folly".

Yes, yes. I know they meant North Korea. But it seems that in this instance, the knee jerked so violently that the Labour source who didn't want to be named managed to injure themself instead of the SNP. I've heard of people making wrong Korea moves, but honestly... :-)

Give the man a peerage

I caught the tail-end of what sounded like a very bad-tempered debate on Trident in the Scottish Parliament this morning. However, amidst the general hooting, hollering and tyre-swinging in evidence on the Labour benches, one contributor shone out like a beacon. Step forward John Home-Robertson, backbench nark extrordinaire and soon to be ex-MSP for East Lothian.

Choosing to ignore completely the subject at hand, Home-Robertson decided instead to embark on a treatise on an SNP defence policy existing nowhere except his own imagination. The worrying thing was that on the fleeting occasions when he did manage to look up from his notes, he looked like he genuinely believed the rubbish he was spouting.

An independent Scotland would have to introduce conscription, we were told, to overcome the unemployment that independence would bring. There would be no shiny new Eurofighters for the Scottish air force, which would presumably be left flying Sopwith Camels. And the Labour government had been making great progress, oh yes, when it came to multilateral nuclear disarmament. Just so long as you pretend that India, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran don't exist, you understand.

Such a parliamentary talent should be preserved in perpetuity for the nation, immune to the slings and arrows of public opinion. The man surely deserves a peerage for years of tireless service to partisan party hackery and the advancement of nonsense arguments. Lord Home-Robertson of Balderdash has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

You wait ages for a post...

...then 3 come along at once. Check out this news report on Labour's plans to replace Trident:

'Watch as Labour First Minister runs down a corridor to hide from journalists wanting to ask why he supports spending billions on nuclear weapons of mass destruction.'

The best bit comes around 1'30" into the clip, as a press officer tries to prevent the TV crew from filming the FM as he disappears away down the corridor. Somehow, I'm not convinced this is the sort of statesman-like image he would want to project to the world...