Clegg Breaks Ranks on Nuclear Options
Nick Clegg has broken ranks with the political establishment on Trident, telling Nick Robinson “We have to be realistic and candid about what we can and can’t afford as a nation”.
During the Cold War the logic of Trident and other nuclear missile systems was compelling, now the threat is from terrorists and rogue states the case for Trident is nowhere near as strong. The Russian nuclear arsenal is much reduced from the Soviet era, so any future threat response imaginable need not be made to meet an over-whelming massive multiple warhead nuclear attack from a hostile superpower.
Yet the Tory and Labour party establishments remain committed to the U.S. supplied Trident system. The £100 billion price tag for a system that isn’t really independent is too much in these circumstances. Britain needs a much reduced smaller bespoke system along the lines of the French force de frappe. Something more akin to smart missiles which can be launched from air, land or sea.
Nick Clegg has asked Ming to review the LibDem approach to strategic defence. The military top brass will always demand expensive new toys, just as trade union leaders always demand pay rises. The Tories are also reviewing defence matters. £100 billion is a lot of money to pay for the wrong insurance policy.
We should replace it with a system whereby we have six billion little tiny bullets, one for each person on the planet, and at the press of a button Gordon Brown can fire these bullets – pow – thus killing everybody. It’s a lot more efficient than using a smaller number of larger explosives and probably cheaper.
Swine flu is just superior. No mess to clean up afterwards.
If you think the next war will be fought with bullets and tanks, think again. It’ll be biuological – nasty.
Biu-Illugical, shurly ..
\”\”Russian nuclear arsenal is much reduced from the Soviet era, so any future threat response imaginable need not be made to meet an over-whelming massive multiple warhead nuclear attack from a hostile superpower.\”\”
We could still expect to get a healthy 400+ megatons of that \”much reduced\” arsenal.
That would be enough to give us a probabalistic outcome of perhaps 95 percent fatalities in the UK.
We may not have the same \”amount\” as we did in the 70\’s but the systems are far more accurate now, and have been optimised for airburst release, which increases the destructive potential a lot.
And any \”major power\” that makes itself unique by not having a deterrent becomes a fantastic target.
“something more akin to “smart missiles” that can be launched from air, land or sea”
Riight.. er.. so erm… what would the range of those be? As a result, calculate the total number of submarines that you need to have an equivalent deterrent.
The beauty of trident is that it is undetectable, could be anywhere on earth, “land” means they have targets they HAVE To hit first in the UK and can neutralise, “air” means we have to equip (and train with) nuclear weapons on fighter planes, and by the way, introduce a stealthy long-range strategic bomber (probably equivalent in cost).
Why not simply leave things as they are, we have the “cheapest effective” system, it covers the entire globe if necessary but doesn’t require that we dedicate a large amount of our armed forces to maintain, the beauty of buying american systems is that WE DONT HAVE TO SPEND THE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS NECESSARY TO DEVELOP ICBM TECHNOLOGY WE HAVENT HAD SINCE THE FUCKING 60’s.
what you people seem to be missing is for any country to even think of a WMD strike. you would have already been engaged in a conventional war, which when the tide starts to turn againt you only as a last resort would you use them !
“at the press of a button “
Surely you meant to say:
“following a series of consultations with other leaders across the world and the exhaustive deliberations of the cabinet military response review council which the do nothing party opposite has opposed at every stage and with the benefit of a forward finger movement targetted on helping hard working foreigners everywhere and their families the threat facing this country which started in america will be responded to during the lifetime of the next parliament following the 2011 spending review… at the press of a button”
I prefer 10,000 doses of Pollonium-210 with a similar number of water pistols from Toys\’R\’Us
All we really need is about 10 nuclear bombs. That is one each for the major rogue states, and of course we must have one for France.
No – nothing so messy. Gordon can take up the option and get this GPS cyanide implant patented: \”… to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he\’d become a public threat.\”. So simple and clean.
! Try again – GPS cyanide implant
We must have one for every rogue state,Germany,France,Andora,Monaco,Lapland
Malta,Cyprus etc. etc, we must remain vigilant and alert to counter the global threat.
2 for France. We need to make sure.
absolutely
but if you can miss Euro disney that would be great.
I don\’y personally give a shit but for some reason my 7 year old just does.
(with exception apparently of the car ride that is never working whenever we visit and i get constant grief on for 3 hours when driving back to the channel ports)
Lib Dims say anything for a vote, NORWICH by election.
No, the Tories already have Norwich sewn up – they have Mr S Baldrick standing (should increase the intellectual armoury of the party at Westminster).
I favour the ultimate deterrent, as demonstrated in Carry on Up the Khyber; dress Golem up in a kilt and get him to lift it every time we are threatened. t the very least it will put our enemies off breeding for a few centuries.
Genius! the Russians have reduced their stockpile to enough to blow up the world just 4 times over instead of 10, as a result we should do away with our stockpile altogether?
I mean its not as if China Pakistan, Iran, N Korea, Isreal and India have nuclear weapons and the possible intent to use them….
The only European power to ever have and then decomission nuclear weapons is Ukraine and the Russians still treat them with respect, its not as if they regularily blackmail the country and try to assasinate its leaders since the got rid of wait….
The UK “independent” nuclear weapons system is an illusion, insofar as it is as independent as the US will allow, being totally tied to the US military GPS system for the accuracy of its MIRV’d warheads. The French, who maintain both silo and submarine launched nukes are probably in a near identical position.
Without the US military GPS the accuracy of these systems become so degraded they are not much more than an area bombardment weapon and the US can elect to turn off the military bands of their GPS satellites to non-US users at will. One cannot immagine the US allowing any military power to enage in a nuclear exchange without their specific fore-knowledge and permission.
Part of the push within the corrodors of power within EU politico/defense circles for the establishment of the “Galileo” satellite system (last estimated cost U$D 3 billion and rising) is that it will give EU countries access to a military grade GPS, fully independent of the US.
This will then permit them to develop, deploy and use anything from existing silo and submarine launched ballistic nuke missiles, un-manned remote controlled (Reaper/Predator type drones, to a new generation of precision guided weapons, semi-autonomous drones and enhanced battelfield 3CI. All the B#S about the civilan benefits are largely a smokescreen to cover the military applications.
Pleased to see that the Tories are also considering this.
I was first for approximately 1 minute, now I’m second. My claim to fame has gone and has been replaced by a rather extreme solution, even for Gordon Brown.
If you had both hands on the keyboard while gawping at Piers Moron you wouldn\’t be second
I don’t need a toy boy yet and I’d certainly draw the line at Piers Morgan. I’m a trained “touch” typist, but I would touch Piers with a barge pole.
Correction: I should have said WOULDN’T touch Piers with a barge pole
Freud got you there
You can say that again, again!
I want to hear what Master B has to say on this … strange that he\’s quiet, and in office hours too ….
Jonty is on Sabbatical. Doing his homework.
Doing his fucking paper round.
He is probably in the shit house pulling the end off it with his sisters Bella magazine.
Isn’t it amazing what Builders Crack has learnt at his local BNP meetings.
Master B is either female or transsexual judging by her last week’s output. Maybe multiple, immature personalities, all employed for peanuts by Big Brother’s carousel from hell, though.
This is an absolute fucking joke, sell AWE then drop our independant deterant all together, does the HOON not realise that it is our IND that keeps us at the top table in Geo Politics.
We need the IND for more reasons than Clegg thinks. Jobs at BAE, Royal Navy, Qinetiq Babocks Sea Systems and Rolls Royce in Faslane will go, will not be needing those SSBN (Missile Boats) and anyone says ooh we can employ people to decommission them get a fucking clue.
Decommissioning and defueling a sub is a highly specialised job, often requiring an advanced degree unlike Power Plants.
The Russians (This is the only area of defence that they still spend big money on) have docks full of rusting boats and they actually want to use the Engine plants again and are rushing to get them out have done about a fifth of the fleet in 18 years.
Admittedly although a young buck I am old fashioned in this sense, but we need to show that this country still has teeth and can defend itself if called upon to do so.
We will be sure to advise the surviving roaches to prise the flagpole from your cold dead hands once the clouds have lifted …
McLovin
Correct in every respect !!
if only others would understand
Too true McLovin.
This technology can’t be uninvented. Many other extremely dodgy countries are persuing this. Who knows where the world will be in 30 years time? After all who would’ve predicted the Berlin wall would come down within 10 years in 1980
It’s important for us to keep our IND or massivley increase out conventional forces. IND is cheaper.
Labour and the Tories took turns destroying our pre-eminent aircraft industry, our developing strategic missiles and our then truly independent nuclear deterrent during the 1950s and 1960s.
They’d scrap the pretend-independent Trident like a shot if they thought they’d get away with it.
Pakistan and India, benefitting from billions of UK foreign aid, Israel, Iran, North Korea and Uncle Tom Cobley and all can afford the hardware.
Seems we can’t.
We should follow the SWISS army example.
And use a penknife?
Keep a rifle under the bed?
We shall soon have a Swiss-style Navy.
A rubber dinghy in the Thames.
ski’s?
Bomb them with Toblerone
Swiss Army = Warm Sissy
Gnome Anne\’s Land
Two possibilities here:
1. Everyone gets a Victorinex Swiss Army Knife. Won\’t do much for the street knife crime stats, though.
2. Everyone gets to join the army. Does wonders for the unemployment stats.
Vote now, vote often.
Now then don’t give El Gordo ideas ” Everyone gets to join the army. Does wonders for the unemployment stats.”
Gordo would definitely have the Bank for International Settlement move to London if he could swing it. That would result in better protection for his sorry arse than anything else I can think of (though not of course from hunky Piers). But would £100m do it?
Let\’s run this idea – the thought of not being able to have the BIS in London could be the thing that finally makes McMental flip.
Use El as the prefix
Or how about the Taliban – an AK47, pair of flip flops and a moped. Should get change out of 500 quid. Which with a budget of 100 billion means we can have 200 million at the ready. Fucking unbeatable deterrent !
Build a mountain range around the UK?
I wonder what the EU plans are.
I suspect we have signed away our independance on this as well.
Yes – why bother having a nuclear arsenal.
Just pool it with the Europeans. Everything elses is now against our wishes – and we still have not had that promised referendum.
Let Kinnock run it and pay him another few million a year too. He has been stealing a living for so long now. Not bad for a failed MP.
In fact – lets put the country up for sale and all move out – a bankrupt sale.
And we wouldn’t have to tax pensioners essential landlines.
Landmines aren\’t essential for pensioners. There are more credible means of defense against dog fouling & Jehovas witnesses.
Trident is just a hugely expensive political penis-substitute now and should be binned.If we have to stay in the nuclear club, there are much cheaper ways to do it.
Given what successive governments have done to this country and the terminal state it’s now in, I doubt ANY country would want to invade it. Might as well share out a teaspoon of the Plutonium saved for every UK citizen to consume and put us out of our misery.
What if you are wrong?
Nuclear Deterent defence & MAD has kept western Europe free of war & safe from tyranny since WW2.
Abandoning Trident now would be an outrage & dangerous.
If I am wrong & we replace Trident at worst we get another 50 years of peace for £25 billion – if you are wrong our Foreign policy objectives & influence & the defence of democracy & western values will be all but a memory.
Remeber – China has just ordered the largest naval fleet in human history – it is not ordering the missile carriers for defence
I love your assertion that nuclear deterrent defence has kept western Europe free of war since WW2. You don\’t have a very sophisticated understanding of causality, do you?
The microwave oven was invented just after WW2. How do you know that it wasn\’t microwave ovens that kept western Europe free of war?
Microwave ovens are not weapons, they have nothing to do with war.
Furthermore the idea that nuclear weapons kept Europe free of conventional war is a respectable academic argument, even if one doesn\’t agree with it.
\”Microwave ovens are not weapons, they have nothing to do with war\”
Stranely true and false.
Do you know what a \”Cavity magnetron\” is? One of the most important and secret bits of kit in the early 1940\’s and now we\’ve all got them.
Its quite a good deterent to war to be able to know exactly where your enemy\’s planes and boats are.
You, as ever, are an arse of the first order.
When you are in long trousers intellectually you may have an understanding of \”defence\”, providing you stop being a child & actually look at the potential threats we face:
Not Iran, not North Korea but China.
We cannot match China\’s conventional or nuclear weapons spending, but what we can make sure we have the means to remove many of their assets should that horror ever come to pass.
I re-assert, Mutually Assured Destruction & the money spent on nuclear weapons has kept western Europe free from the threats & from war since WW2 – & to pretend or try to introduce the idea that it was anything other is crass & stupid in the extreme, & in complete defiance of the historically recorded facts.
Now, go & do your homework, kids TV is on in a bit.
The thing is, to have a \”credible\” deterent system you need one that has extended range that makes a small fleet of 4 submarines credible in terms of coverage.
That way you can have 1-2 on patrol and still retain a strike capability.
I second the comments about strategic level peace being as a result of nuclear weapons, I also think we need to cautious about assuming that we will never need to use them, China\’s future proliferation and current building programs are enormous.
Adopting a \”smart missile\” solution, using perhaps tomohawk, or the french system with a far reduced range in comparison to Trident II D-5 is really stupid.
Nuclear weapons make large scale wars less likely because there is the catastrophic risk of escalation, it is the best way to ensure peace in our time.
Or another way to look at it, at a time where several countries are now developing nuclear capable intermediate range missile systems, we shouldn\’t be so keen to get rid of ours, we are no \”further forward\” than we were in the 1930\’s , the same rules apply, we are still human.
We need operational independance from the US, we do have that with Trident, to a larger extent than people think – and we need it if we develop a future replacement, a short range missile system is not an option.
The problem is that you need to make these decisions based on a good and thorough understanding of strategic warfare, if you haven\’t got that, don\’t interject with useless comments such as \”we don\’t need them in a world where terrorism is a greater threat\”, if terrorism is our greatest threat currently, it may not be in 20 years time.
These are expensive, but cheap considering what they give us.
And cheap considering that we just spent hundreds of billions forgiving the financial sector for the mistakes that are responsible for everything we are currently experiencing.
If you like vegetables a lot, believe in world peace, great, I agree, but you need a last-resort, and if we don\’t have one, we lose any ability to influence the chain of events that hopefully will never unfold.
I hate these pointless causality arguments as they’re generally result in everything being argued to a standstill. If we took this line of reasoning we wouldn’t base out descisions on anything. Science, economics the lot are determined by plotting one sensible things against another and testing a hypothesis.
Also you’re argument is flawed. Throughout the cold war both sides followed a policy of mutually assured destruction which was designed to prevent a war actually starting. Both sides we’re following this line of thinking i.e. lets counter each others moves to maintain the stalemate and therefore the peace.
MAD worked because both sides believed in it.
Also, remember we’re entering a time of diminishing resources, environmenal pressures and a levelling up of expectations. That is to say we’re entering a multi-polar world with the potential for 19th century resource wars and/or political instability due to increased population pressures.
The next 100 years look decidedly dodgy.
Oh, and are you seriously suggesting that the Chinese are planning to nuke us? How exactly would it be in their interests to nuke one of their main export markets?
You really are an idiot & not worth the trouble.
Are you familiar with the term \”ad hominen fallacy?\”
What if instability in China grows? What if they have an energy crisis? I agree they wouldn’t do this now. But what if they want to play to populism/fear and decide to rattle the cage? There are too many what ifs.
And why the FUCK does that Piers Morgan video keep playing itself?
And this mighty Chinese fleet is sailing half way round the globe to threaten us?
And if it did, do you think that our relatively small nuclear arsenal would deter them, assuming that we ever had the will to use it?
And if, in extremis, we did deploy it against Beijing, how do you imagine that they might respond against us?
Are you beginning to get the feel of the practical limitations of our quite expensive and rather limited nuclear deterrent?
Surely it was the NHS that has kept Europe free of war since 1945; or maybe the EU; or perhaps ITV.
\”\”I re-assert, Mutually Assured Destruction & the money spent on nuclear weapons has kept western Europe free from the threats & from war since WW2\”\”
Oh no … not according to the EU it hasn\’t. Europe has been peaceful because of the hard work of Kinnock and the EU, formerly the EC and formerly the EEC.
Being absorbed secretly into an all controlling unelected Socialist Superstate with deals done in smoke filled rooms and no elections in the constituent nations has kept us from fighting each other apparently.
Probably be easier for Scotland to become truly independent if trident is done
away with. England will never let Sotland go as long as trident is situated there.
I see you say \’.. remove some of their assets ..\’, I guess that\’s an euphenism for destroy some cities.
Bit like the US did with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
No Dave, by assets I meant the Naval Fleet assets – please Google Cinese spending on their navy for more information.
Dave
I really get cheesed off with people like you. Yes you are right those attacks were absolutely terrible but…….
Who attacked the Americans on a sunday morning at daybreak without warning?
It should always be noted that those nuclear attacks you mention actually saved lives because without then the mainland of Japan would have to be taken by the foot soldiers. The lessons of the islands prior to Okinawa tells us the loss of life would have been ‘beyond comprehension’
‘beyond comprehension’ those words I quote directly from the Japanese emporer himself. If he got a lot of things wrong he truly did not get that assimilation wrong.
Yoy blog openly today because someone just like you died on a beach in a faraway country of which he / she knew nothing.
The answer to your concerns, Mrs, is asymmetric defence. You would do well to study the boys’ hardware and consider its different uses. Because you have a lovely big carving knife in your kitchen doesn’t mean you must peel the chestnuts with it.
MAD theory fell out of favour after (a) tactical battlefield nukes with limited effect were created, (b) which implied that an exchange of nukes need not be an all or nothing scenario. Modern scenarios do not run the game till the net sum is zero. It is not MAD that has kept western Europe free from war since 1945 but aversion to its horrors. A country invaded is a country that knows the horrors.
The US Fed needs the 100 Billion!
First time I\’ve ever agreed with nick clegg. Burger King are doing themselves a disservice sponsoring pm! He\’s going to become synymous with burgers and no one
is going to want to eat them (fear of bringing up), well, mandleson will still probably be a staunch customer – (served with caviar of course).
Sorry, SYNONYMOUS.
how long have burger king been sponsering brown ?
Not forgetting lashings of guacamole (or was that mushy peas?)
Just been watching Yes Prime Minister. Its so funny how Trident and ID cards were the main issues 30 years ago!!!
lol – same shit, different day…
But, the French have submarine based nukes as well.
yes
but up until the last few months always totally independent of NATO. Not anymore so is there a collective agreement now on these weapons.
Tread carefully and be careful what you wish for
Just how \”good\” is their deterrant though? Does it have the same range as trident for example?
No, it only reaches as far as Liverpool with a tailwind.
The nuclear threat is increasing, not decreasing as Clegg implies; look at Iran and North Korea.
If Clegg is wrong, all he will do is apologise while we bear the consequences.
It’s all academic anyway as the LibDems will never be in power anyway and they are just trying to capture the anti-nuclear vote to bolster their tawdry performance.
All of the arguments against Defence spending are driven by the politicians’ need to spend on “koolsnospitals” to secure popularity .
This is compounded by their tendency to concentrate spending on “fighting the last war”.
In the 90’s we were told that the Cold War was over , so disbanding half the army was justified – now we’re chronically short of troops .
In the 80’s Labour wanted to do away with OUR nuclear weapons to help their Commie pals and were threatening to build up British armoured units in Germany – is that sensible now ?
In the 60’s Labour and the Liberals (yes , Jeremy Thorpe did make it his key defence policy) withdrew all our troops from east of Suez . That’s why the Persian Gulf , along with much of the Middle East became so unstable and why we are unable to project power much beyond Cyprus . No rogue states or major problems in that half of the globe , so that worked out well , didn’t it ?
That same Wilson Government also savagely reduced our infantry regiments to the extent that we needed to use artillerymen , engineers and even bloody sailors as infantry in Northern Ireland just a couple of years later !
Double defence expenditure now ! Don’t fritter away our country’s power and influence on MRSA extension or the the National Ignorance and Criminality Programme which is comprehensive education !
make that “skoolsnospitals”.
Sorry .
iran will never get a nuclear weapon. israel will never allow it !
Why replace a fully working system, has HMG not heard of making things last?
“use by” date is approaching…
Who shall we nuke then?
Then let\’s use them before they are out of date. Cannot put them in a landfill, can we?
Hey, we can solve the \”Brussels\” problem with them. Got to make sure the wind is blowing in the right direction, though.
Met Office, can you help here?
Got to ask the Americans before we can use them!
So is this why the Government want to do away with \”best before\” and \”sell by\” dates and only put a \”Use by\” Label on things?
I nomiate Westminster as the first use by for Trident closely followed by Brussells.
and the trougher Devine banned as labour candidate.
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/102872-jim-devine-blocked-from-standing-for-re-election-as-mp/
Never should have been elected.
Is this the same Guido who, only last week, forbad that we post on policy matters?
R56
He also admitted to being inconsistent.
Good point.
Blimey – a sensible idea from the Lib Dems… lets hope it catches on with the other parties. £100billion isn’t exactly pocket change.
Guido – is it possible for you to get rid of the video of Piers Morgan that keeps popping up in this comments section? Every time I see him, I get the overwhelming urge to stab him in the face with something sharp… I’m on my third monitor already.
Piers, and the Bomb, stay.
Mr E;
Firefox, Noscript, Adblock plus.
Simples!
or Firefox/addons/Flashblock
Perfect – thank you. Looking at a video of a semi-naked Piers Morgan was really starting to trouble me…
commie peacenik surrenderist
get back to doing your macrame on greenham common guido, and leave the defence of the realm to people who know that £20 billion (or about 3.5% of annual govt spending) isn’t too much to guarantee our safety in an increasingly nuclearised world.
Leave it to the morons to throw the commie accusation at anyone who doesn\’t like the idea of us all blowing each other to bits. That\’s as poor as Labour and their accusation that anyone who questions their immigration policy is automatically a racist.
The people without the bombs are the ones who get bombed. Ask the japs.
Having a lot of nukes didn\’t seem to stop the septics enjoying 9/11, did it?
The Penguin
Having a lot of weapons certainly helped them respond to 9/11.
and has it made either the UK or the USA a safer place?
You’re not one of those Blair worshipping nutters who thinks iraq and afghanistan had nothing to do with 7/7 are you – in spite of the ringleader making a video saying his actions were a direct response to them?
Treasonous – as the world gets more dangerous, with the threat of ICBM technology being made avaialable to all & sundry via the AQ Khan network, Clegg & the Limp Dums want Great Britain to attend all future gun fights with a knife?
Naive & dangerous & short-sighted.
As China orders the largest offensive surface naval fleet & missile carriers in human history, he wants us to stand down our defence in order to give more money away to foreigners & to Lib Dem troughers & his dear friends at the EU?
I know the BBC is spinning like mad for Clegg to dilute the Tory vote, but this statement is beyond the pale.
If we closed down DFID now & withdrew from the insipid socialist EU we could not only afford our deterent defence we could also give our armed forces the basic kit they need.
Remember Trident is a matter of £25 billion or so – or around 8 years worth of tax we give to the BBC.
Clegg is wrong on so many levels – which is fine under normal circumstances – but his appeasenik policies will get this country into serious trouble if we get a hung Parliament next time.
And Clegg has the sheer audacity to call Griffin an extremist? At least the national socialist unmentionables would defend the realm.
Seconded. It doesn\’t sound much in the scheme of things and there is so much (any) Government could do to cut wastage but at the same time to encourage manufacturing and other enterprise and raise productivity to cream off
Nick \”Peace in our time\” Clegg hopping of a plane from Tehran as we all watch the mushroom clouds over the eastern end of the Med on our TV screens.
Typically sad Liberals, but the Brown Broadcasting Corp luvvies will lap it up !
Another case for the HoC straight jacket please !
I thought foreign nationals couldnt be treasonous.
“Treason” was originally a sort of medieval Prevention of Terrorism act – though history is silent as to whether it was ever used to steal another countries’ money. The first man to be hung, drawn and quartered was, in fact, a Scot – that Braveheart fellow. No doubt you all have a list of Hibernians who could be used to carry out a reconstruction of that event.
Yea, lets get rid of the nuclear deterent, just as Iran is aquiring its own.
Good Idea
Under what conceivable circumstances do you think that Iran would directly threaten the British mainland with nukes?
Assuming, of course, the remote possibility that they ever develop the incredibly sophisticated delivery systems required to fling a nuclear warhead much further than Tel Aviv.
I\’m just guessing, but taking the geopolitical history of the region into account I would hazard that might possibly be the limit of their strategic thinking.
Or were you possibly thinking about our valuable assets in Cyprus that are only 45 minutes away from that part of the World. In fairness, such a scenario did greatly trouble a previous British, Prime Minister who understood these things with great clarity.
Rolls eyes & sighs.
Why has the Islamic Republic of Iran consistently test fired missiles from their merchant naval stock?
Why have they never tried to achieve nano resolution with the targetting of their ballistic & non ballistic missiles?
No-one is saying that the Mullahs are crazy enough for a total release scenario – but they are mad enough to fund a proxy to fire ONE ICBM above Europe on a Monday morning – the resulting EM pulse would wipe out every computer & communications network with one bang, & our world would change forever – & we would have our suspicions but no legal sanction to retaliate.
” No-one is saying that the Mullahs are crazy enough for a total release scenario ”
erm…I am.
This is religion we are talking about. No amount of madness should be ruled out
Does Clegg have a mole at CCHQ?
Trident is simply not a credible deterrent, simply because of it’s massive destructive power.
Even with the minimum possible number of warheads mounted on a single missile, the destructive power would dwarf that of any threat form a rogue state.
Upscaling from kiloton yields to megaton yields requires immense investment and time, therefore no small nation which the US might choose as the next bogeyman could possibly achieve this in fifteen/twenty years from a standing start.
If Russia wanted a nuclear war for some bizarre reason, Trident is the perfect retaliatory system, but of course Britain would be a smouldering ruin regardless.
What if we had absolute proof Saudi Jihadists had detonated a dirty bomb in Trafalgar Square, (Labour would have us believe this is possible, which it is almost certainly not), where would we lob our 50 megaton response?
The cheapest & most flexible option is to procure a mix of submarine launched nuclear armed cruise missiles, and ballistic weapons such as the superb Russian SS26 Iskander.
A half kiloton weapon is far more credible, accurate to within fifteen feet, and
a system potential enemy’s could actually envisage being used.
The main benefit of cancelling Trident will be the ability to divert the funds to the construction of a 170 foot high containment wall along the England/Scotch border, complete with 30 foot deep trenches on either side.
The Scotch defensive system will have the lastest I/R systems, a land mine zone on either side, and a fleet of Light Attack Helicopters to engage and destroy Scotchers attempting the make the crossing by sea, and I am unanimous in that
“Even with the minimum possible number of warheads mounted on a single missile, the destructive power would dwarf that of any threat form a rogue state.”
Utter bollocks. And short sighted to boot. It is a detterent against all states not some village in Pakistan.
Its not to protect us against the Islamic revolution. Its to protect us against the French.
In that case, couldn\’t we just string a few bars of soap along the English channel?
was that CCHQ or GCHQ?
CCHQ, the Tories innit
Are you smoking crack?
Given you don’t understand the subject, trident (as is) has a vastly calibrable warhead, we can go from a few kilotonnes to over a hundred with each MIRV, nothing like the megatonne range except when launched in salvos.
People seem to forget that one VERY REAL use of something like trident is to pre-empt an impending strike, you need to have a large radius of destruction to take out hardened silos, half kilotonne? right, well, you can’t take out a hardened silo complex with that.
trident is big business. There is so much money wasted and funneled off from our weapons program, its one massive trough for the boys at the top. Its also a good idea to keep our nuclear scientists in paid cushy government jobs, as these boys are a bit like old fashioned Dr Who’s. If we let them out of Aldermaston, who knows what they will get up too.
Go on an intergalactic shagathon.
£100 Billion is way to much for a system that is not 100% UK controlled. Please Mr President may we have permission to fire our weapons! We need a flexible system, much as I hate to say it, similar to the French with soverign UK control. We could retain and improve our current system and supplement it with a nuclear equipped cruise missile capable of being launched from the ground, sea and air. and maybe with the money saved we could have a Patriot style anti-missile defence system. Having said that all the above is useless against the vast majority of likely attacks which will be terrorist.
Given the nature of our present Government, I am very happy that our deterrent is not 100 percent UK controlled.
Our deterrent is completely independent operationally. If we decide we want to remove Washington DC from the planet, we have the technical ability to do it, and short of sinking our missile subs before they get within the 4500 mile missile range of Trident the yanks can’t do a thing about it.
They don’t have any control of the weapons whatsoever, no key for the missile or warhead, nothing. The control that is spoken of is the fact that we buy replacement parts from the US (like the proposed lifetime extension to trident) and that we “wouldn’t” do it without permission from America. Wouldn’t, however does not mean “couldn’t”.
Is he saying that Russia is not a threat because they only have a couple of thousand or so warheads left? Just how many do they need to turn Britain into a big car park?
The guy is a knob of the very highest order. And a good reason why politicians should all be tagged and put under curfew.
Our nuclear deterrent is the USA. They wouldn’t let us fire missiles without their permission (or passwords) anyway.
Be realistic. I am all for one or two nuclear missiles in a submarine but thats it. How about do the reverse of what Israel does. Say you DO have missiles when you DON’T. It’s like having a hollow CCTV camera.
It would be a really mad mullah who bet his country on Israel having sand in those wareheads. Plus the Israelis are the ones who truly would pull the trigger.
The worst possible scenario at the moment is undoubtedly Israel and Iran lobbing whatever they have at each other.
The problem is that the rest of the world has no idea of the hand either side is holding…
The Yids will not countenance the mullahs having a nuke, not after the threats the mad bastards have been making. If they think it\’s the only option, they\’ll definitely pull the trigger.
The Penguin
Putting the incredibly offensive parts of that comment aside yes I think you’re right. Isreal is surrounded by aggressors and this informs the thinking of their government. They won’t hesistate to strike if necessary.
Can you prove that Britain has no ability to use them independently?
…..and we\’ve got plenty of hollow CCTV ameras.
“Our nuclear deterrent is the USA. They wouldn’t let us fire missiles without their permission (or passwords) anyway.”
Actually, we have complete control of the system. The idea that the yanks have the ability to stop us from launching anything is an old anti nuke argument that would have died a natural death a long time ago if people could read the masses of readily available literature available about Trident.
More dangerous and hostile countries have nukes. If we scrap ours as a cost saving and the money is spent on more CCTV cameras or ethnic awareness programmes will we really be any safer?
No. but you just might get your pension a little longer.
Trident could easily be replaced by the use of sea or air launched cruise missiles. These could be launched from a variety of military platforms.
and be honest. We know who we have to nuke. Saudi Arabia, Iran and North Korea.
The French spend much more than we do on their nuclear force. We could buy off them rather than the Americans but that wouldn’t be any more independent or we could devleop our own which would be massively more expensive.
With nuclear weapons it’s either Trident or nothing.
Much better with nothing, then you can claim the moral high ground. Giving the propensity for this country sticking it\’s oar into other peoples business, we would be better of without.
While we\’re on military subjects…
Looks like Brown is heading for a serious rebellion over the Iraq inquiry. Conservatives have tabled a motion calling for it to be public. Looks like a lot of Labour may vote against Brown.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/49090,news,the-mole-pressure-grows-for-public-iraq-inquiry-gordon-brown-uk-politics
\”There is now a real feeling in Westminster that this issue is going the same way as the Gurkha row…\”
Another pathetic fuck-up that will make him look even more foolish. Something to look forward to next week…
Ooooooohhhhh!! Can\’t wait!
I mean, I won\’t vote for Cameron as I\’m a conservative but why doesn\’t he launch an on-line petition at Number 10\’s website or on his own but no one visits much. informationclearinghouse.info
Don\’t hold your breath for the Labour Party rebelling, they don\’t.
What\’s to inquire about? We all know what happened. We went to war. It went well for a little while, then it went bad for a long while and now its finally going well – no thanks to us, since we got run out of town. Unless this \”inquiry\” leads to better equipment, better strategic planning and more money for the armed forces, its just another expensive media blame-athon where every Tom, Dick and Polly can re-express their synthetic anguish and reiterate their Iraq talking points for the millionth time.
Exactly,
Iraq was a jihadi flytrap.
I want to know why the UK MoD bought the pinzgauer when it was obvious that an MRAP vehicle was needed (maybe a pre-bankrupt UK van maker could’ve built them!).
Iain,
I couldn\’t agree more – what the UK desperately needs is a strategic defence review.
If it is honest for once it will question :
(1) why the UK should have a nuclear deterrent at all, especially when it isn\’t truly \”independent\” and there is no longer an identifiable nuclear threat that it may be used against?
(2) why does the UK have to behave as if it still has an empire and is the world\’s policeman in places like Iraq and Afghanistan?
(3) why doesn\’t the UK buy less costly and generally better quality defence equipment and aircraft from the USA than it gets from UK and European suppliers?
(4) why the unsinkable aircraft carrier that is the UK needs to have two new \”mini aircraft carriers\”?
What\’s happened to Geoff Hoon\’s 6 or 7 all-singing all-dancing helicopters collecting dust in a hangar somewhere? They cost us a fortune and they could be put to good use if someone had an inkling of common sense.
What\’s with all these backstroke thingsys? I thought it was me pooter keyboard
Think it relates to the use of an apostrophe.
Good point about the helicopters gathering dust, one of the biggest (among many) money wasting scandals of Labour\’s rubbish stint in government.
they are still in crates at middle wallop
No there not, there at Boscombe Down .
I stand corrected
I thought Boscombe Down was Qinetiq rather than MoD territory.
(2) dunno. see other post about playing with big naughty boys.
(3) Perhaps a bit keynsian, but money to the USA doesnt benefit anyone in the uk. That does sound \”a bit commie\” to some folks, but its the way they do it in the USA.
(4) coz it cannot be floated to within a few hundred miles of the gulf. but then we\’re back to (2).
Marian
If you are going to copy and paste your posts from other blogs, at least do Guido the courtesy of changing the salutation……
R56
“4) why the unsinkable aircraft carrier that is the UK needs to have two new \”mini aircraft carriers\”?”
Because the UK, whilst unsinkable, is also immoveable you fuckwit. The job of an aircraft carrier is to take aircraft with you wherever you need them. Is this so hard to comprehend? The clue is in the name: aircraft carrier. Got it?
Shortsighted.
Over the lifetime of the system the initial costs & running costs pales into insignificance when compared to the glaring hole in our defensive deterent capability if we abandon the one weapons platform that has kept Europe safe for 50 years.
Stuff Iranm & North Korea – these are minor players.
China\’s military spending, particularly on their offensive capability is staggering.
And the Lib Dems & Guido want to abandon the one true insurance policy that actually works?
Mutually Assured Destruction works – & it will be a dereliction of duty to future generations of british citizens if we abandon good sense because we see no immediate threat.
Taking a blunt knife to a gun fight is just stupid – we are the real men in British politics – these touchy feely liberals cannot protect us.
nonsense. Only UK & France have nuclear in Europe.
Russia?
And your point is?
what about israel they have it ?
Going to the fight sounds pretty fucking stupid
Mutually Assured Destruction works, but not under this present Liebore government. We would be wiped from the face of the Earth just as Gorgon announced forming a new committee to consider the response. If that someone decided to launch against us, we have minutes, not months or years, to respond.
the one thing making europe more unstable is the EU. there is a lot of unrest about bieng conned into the fedral state in alot of the EU !
Which way\’s the wind blowing Hank?
Who gives a damn you jerk – let\’s just blast those suckers.
Yeah – but don\’t they have nukes?
Yeah, but they ain\’t as good as ours. Now are you going to hit the button or shall I?
Trade up, you know it makes sense.
———————————————————————
Advertisement courtesy of the US Department of Trade
We\’re told we have to have nuclear weapons to guarantee us a seat at the top table.
But the table is in the UN…a totally busted flush, run by third world countries on the take and corrupt nobodies.
The UN is a waste of time but the UNSC (security council) isn’t.
what is wrong with the nuke’s we’ve got ? do they biodegrade after 20 years ? if you look at the russian and chinese missiles they are years old !
£100 billion sure is a lot of money.
Consider how much fuss there has been over spending £4 billion on the 2 new aircraft carriers. Modern aircraft carriers are an amazingly powerful and versatile weapon that could meet most of the military threats that we are likely to face. Why not save the Trident money and buy half a dozen new carriers (and maybe a few more type 45 destroyers while we\’re at it).
No-one would want to mess with us then.
Because, Idiot of Mitcham, both carriers could be taken out with one tactical nuclear weapon if they were in the same place.
Aircraft carriers are purchased to underpin the foreign policy objectives of the Government, not to actually fight if they can possibly help it. Even modern air arm fleet carriers are vulnerable to a multitude of weapons & scenarios.
Nuclear Weapons are weapons of last resort – & we will always need that last resort as a deterent.
Gosh, could they really? I don\’t suppose the Royal Navy have thought of that. I suggest you get in touch with Admiral Band immediately and tell him to make sure the carriers aren\’t in the same place at the same time.
BTW, nice to see you\’re being your usual well-mannered self!
It would cost a bloody fortune to staff and maintain them and buy the aircraft to put on them.
or just spend a few bob on standard equiptment that our lads out there need now . not billions on something we will never use ! in the west only america will ever use a nuke and that will be a big land based one, not a little firework fired from a sub !
If one can be shot up Mandy\’s arse it will be worth every penny – even if he does die with a smile on his smarmy face
You sound like my kind of guy.
Maybe i\’m being uneducated but:-
Instead of buying more Trident, use the money to build more Subs capable of carrying nuclear tipped cruise missiles (build those as well) …. we can still have a credible deterrant, the ability to use it around the globe due to our increased coverage ability – oh yes and also boost our shipbuilding industry at the same time, ensuring that some of this big spend gets pumped back into our own economy instead of into America…..
We need to be a nuclear power, but lets have our own finger on the button…..
I thought being the worst country in the world to live in was the best deterrent you could have. No industry worth a damn, the worst employers, no control of Banking. Crooked Members of Parliament. Hell anyone want to invade?
The best deterrent to war these past 60 years has been the European Union, I realize the little englanders will disagree, but hell if it wasn\’t for them we would still be putting plugs on electric gadgets.
Haha funniest thing I’ve read in years!
You were being ironic I hope!
No, because the system would be shorter range than trident, with perhaps 3000nm range (still an ICBM lite) the subs themselves cost vast sums to field, crews, training, the more units you have the more room there is for error, having a few long range items functions as a fail-safe.
Please don’t comment on this unless you actually understand what you are writing, nuclear tipped tomohawks, for example, STILL HAVE A RANGE of 1/6th of Trident, absolutely useless unless we want to have subs sitting in heavily patrolled shipping lanes off of china/asia/russia. We need something that is capable wherether it is, and that’s why we shouldn’t reduce our capabilities to be inclusive of people who simply don’t understand the topic enough to make credible comments.
Right… so the issue isnt so much the means of delivery of a nuclear capability – SSBN as against SSGN – but whether there should be a strategic weapon within our arsenal at all, and by association our place in the permanent membership of the UNSC.
FWIW, having those four trident boats and not much of any kind of fleet behind it (what, 36 ships in the Royal Navy? No more than 9 vessels including RFA’s to defend the UK coast at any one time?) strikes me as being a bit hollow.
The way the service chiefs have been allowed to wither our capability since the end of the cold war is staggering. It was different then, there appeared to be a common enemy, a common purpose. Since then there hasnt been.
I’m in agreement with those calling for a FULL strategic defence review, not another of the single service chief willy-waving contests. What IS the threat, what is the threat going to be, what is our international position, why oh why do we insist on trying to punch so much above our own international, diplomatic and military weight, and what forces do we require and are we likely to require to address that threat?
Getting rid of trident is a headline grabber and there are arguments for its withdrawl. However, they are not simple and MUST be seen in the overall strategic and political context.
Given McFuckingBroon gave away 12 billion on a completely pointless vat sop from 17 percent to 15, the 20+billion for Trident suddenly begins to look like good value.
And what\’s with the apostrophes today anyway?
It\’s our keyboards gone faulty all at once-spooky
It's all right here.
! ” £ $ % ^ & * ( ) | \ ? ~ @
We\’re all using the same dodgy keyboard. Simples.
All need new logitekkimabobs.
Needing also worm tablets.
Просто
Nowt wrong with either my keyboard or my typing something happening in cyberspace.
Non-story. Britiain\’s broke; Empire\’s gone in over 50 years. Stop fighting the War of Terror, as a global power. Come home and act like the impoverished, second-rate nation that you are and always were, except for the period circa 1700-1900, when the Continental moneyman temporarily made London its bolthole.
The real threat to the average Brit is not vaporisation by Soviet nuke or dirty-bomb from cave-dwelling \’terrorist\’ but its own regime. ICBM Tridents or standing armies aren\’t much use against tyrannical regimes. The right to bear firearms would be a different matter.
As to more important matters, the fix is in. First came doctored official economic stats like CPI, now unemployment, and the concerted chorus of \’the recession is over\’ form the media shills. All that\’s needed now is to hide true public sector borrowing figures and the regime can parrot \’it\’s over\’ and \’we were vindicated in borrowing to spend our way out of slump\’. At this rate, by Spring next year, the message will have sunk in with Joe Brit and his equally gullible Missus and the faux parties will be neck and neck with a hung parliament most likely at the general election. This will seal Britain\’s fate, as without an overall majority the out of control borrowing and money printing and zero savings rates will go untouched.
Britain will now live in La La Land for the next 12 months with thrice daily parrotting of \’it\’s all getting better – look the figures prove it\’ by the BBC, Sky… whilst everyone in the real world private sector heads into nightmare Dickensian times; all to be followed immdediately post-election and Lisbon Treaty ratification Europewide by the IMF taking over UK fiscal policy.
The smartest comment yet. Too many here cling to the belief that UK plc is still a major power, but despite our glorious past we are, now, a small, second tier nation; rapidly descending to 3rd tier if Brown and his idiot courtiers continue on their current trajectory. Look around you – how many of the 2nd / 3rd tier nations have nuclear weapons? Israel and the Middle East in general have specific problems which we do not have to face, at least directly, and N Korea and Pakistan are no threat to us. Italy, Holland, Norway, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Japan – the list of non-nuclear states goes on and on. Let the big boys keep their nuclear club; our tiny nuclear deterrent adds little to the global balance of power but it could, in certain circumstances, make us a target.
He\’ll have to set out a credible cheaper alternative per 21 above.Then with a sensible policy on the EU he might be on the way to being electable. Uncritical EU support is the LibDems\’ clause 4.
Keep trident so we can all have minty breath.
Test:
Hoon\’s \’ was terribly \’
There\’s a gremlin in t\’ works I think….
Thanks for your e-mail regarding the BBC News Channel on the 7 June.
We understand you felt our coverage of Gordon Brown\’s speech to Labour activists was biased in favour of the Labour Party.
The pressure on Gordon Brown has been intense and mounting this week and so to hear from the man at the centre of the story was clearly a journalistic necessity.
As a live event on the News Channel it would have been irresponsible not to take it up in full. That said, it was clear that this was an orchestrated event with only \”loyal\” activists and politicians allowed to be there.
However this was a point that we emphasised in our introduction to the event, during the event itself and in our analysis afterwards, including in our later packages. Our correspondents spoke of \”loyal, supportive, sympathetic\” people in the audience. Some went further, talking of a carefully stage-managed event and even a \”parallel universe\” where everything in the Prime Minister\’s world was rosy.
Furthermore, while the event was ongoing, one of the on-screen captions read:
BROWN UNDER PRESSURE
PM appears before supportive audience in London
So the Prime Minister’s meeting was an essential part of the main story of the day. But we recognised – and made very clear to the audience – that this was an event carefully managed and orchestrated by Labour.
Our obligation is to provide impartial coverage and we do that through providing consistent news judgments and offering critical analysis. In this case we would have taken entirely the same approach regardless of which party was in power or had it been an opposition leader whose leadership was under intense scrutiny in the same circumstances.
We\’d like to assure you that we\’ve registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.
Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.
Regards
BBC Complaints
____________________________
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints
Top slice, middle slice and bottom slice the fuckers.
\”…….Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.\”
Subtext: \” Now fuck off ! We\’re not interested in your views ! You licence payers are all the same . Pay your £142.50 and think you can tell us what to broadcast or which political party to support. We would remind you that we are absolutley impartial. It is in the public intereset to hold the Tory Opposition to account and to ensure that our viewers fully understand the benefits of a Labour government!\”
Top slice their nuts off – I saw that and it was a blatant party political broadcast, designed to make Broon look popular. If they\’d have had Cameron in the studio, allowed to respond to what snotty was saying, then that would have been \”fair and impartial\”. But they didn\’t, and anyone turning on mid way through would have seen brooon being cheered by an audience, looking for all the world like a popular leader.
100% correct !
Isn\’t this like a playground gang wanting you to eat slugs and give them your crisps?
If we want to stay mates with the big boys we\’ve got to go out doing silly things with them (iraq), and buy toys off them.
Oh, and small bombs on planes a la francais. Mainly useful against the Russians coming in over germany.
Might look good, but its just a mirage.
French planes…Mirage..I saw what you did, there.
Leave out the nuclear war heads and just put McMental into a capsule on the tip of a rocket and threaten to fire the Hoon at any country who bothers us.
He will be wearing a suit and complete with a script
Hard working families
Global
Getting on with the job
It started in America
I will take no lessons from the Tories
Do nothing
Blah fucking blah
I can imagine that any country on earth would want that kunt landing on them.
We certainly didnt, I mean fucking hell the Jocks probably only voted for him to get him out of jockland and down to London.
You’ve rumbled us. We are not stupid, he is. We got rid of some of the most venal, unfortunately we kept the stupid, oh dash it, I met fortunately. By the way Jockland is racist!
Would have thought if Cleggy had announced this before the euro / locals his votes would have been much higher.
I\’d like to take this opportunity to wish Andrew Murray my very best wishes in his attempt to win this year\’s men\’s singles at Wimbledon.
Fucking pansy.
Poor bastards done for now !!
I\’ll put a bet on someone else.
that’s him out in the quarter finals then !
Guido. Let\’s have a stop Bercow thread before it\’s too late.
Should be somewhat easier than getting rid of Martin
You are wrong about the French Guido. They have a fully up together all singing all dancing totally independent (of NATO) Nuclear deterrent.
E=MDMA
E=mc²
Small cock and no Balls is on This Morning. Spinning rubbish about WMDs.
Amazing, in Scotland, the SNP Government have been against Trident for some time and got lambasted for it by Labour, Tories and the Libdems
In fact the Scottish Government doesnt want Trident Nuclear subs parked in the Holy Loch.
Whats gauling is the fact that Labour in the days of the CND marches were also against Trident!
Only the dear Leader beliefs in this time of recession and lack of money, we should be spending Billions on something we cant really afford nor actually want
Cannot afford it & don\’t want it?
This is not a sixth form debating chamber.
What we cannot afford & do not want are not the issues – what we need is.
A last line of defence is essential for Great Britain, otherwise we will finally show that we have forgotten the lessons of recent history.
Abandon Trident at our nations peril – we will make the world more unsafe if we abandon our weapons of last resort.
I sometimes think the lefties want our country to be servile, to roll over and be subsumed by another culture. After all, they hate us so much. A lot of lefties were quite happy not to go to war and fight Hitler. They\’d have rather submitted to the jackboot like France did.
…then the Scottish government obviously doesn\’t want the thousands of highly skilled jobs involved with the nuclear industry either?
No too right, there are no thousands of jobs either. Labour story for the stupid.
\”\”Trident Nuclear subs parked in the Holy Loch.\”
The yanks have gone – ours are moored at Coulport and Faslane – being repaired !!
Hear, hear!
I would just like to say that Trident is a prudent investment in Britains future.
I can almost hear the incoming ICBMS
In America.
The idea of spending billions on a weapon we could not contemplate using under any circumstances is quite simply obscene. The huge spending cuts faced by future governments to undo the damage done by Gormless will no doubt heavily impact on our conventienal forces. Why not spend it on maintaining armed forces we could hire out to fight other people\’s wars at competitive rates, with a few beers thrown in for good measure. That\’s one thing we Brits do quite well, exporting violence and mayhem to foreign shores!!
“we could not contemplate using under any circumstances”
Talk for yourself punk.
We need a nuclear detterent just to be taken seriously by our \’allies\’. Trident is a giant fuck up tho\’. We should invest in our own ballistic missisle system and spin out of it a commercial launch program, which would help cover the costs and may even turn a profit in the long run. We could offer troughers free rides on the prototypes to make sure they\’re safe, just have to make sure the smallprint says: parachutes not included.
Rather flies in the face of recent governments since the sixties destroying our capacity to make world-class weapons systems and aircraft on our own…
The Penguin
Speaker\’s final performance today isn\’t it?
I shall compose a lament which I will never play.
What I fail to understand is, given the vast improvements in global climate science over the last 40 years, why anyone bothers with ICBMs. If someone launches a MAD-style overkill attack on your country, you don\’t need to attack their homelands. Just nuke the icecaps, or a nice big undersea volcano, and kill the globe with a nuclear winter.
All of which could be done with much simpler, cheaper systems than Trident.
why are appearing?
backward slashes
there was an hour this morning when all posts stopped, sounds like gremlins hiding in Guido\’s server having a party!
You sound like a meerkat.
The icecaps have melted (not that a nuke could do that) and (super)volcanoes have erupted without life on the planet being majorly affected.
Also we haven’t made advances in climate simulation, the long term accuracy of predictions in chaotic systems is the same as chance.
True.
Although I believe in hoping for the best but preparing for the worst in all these matters.
Has any state ever used \’nuclear blackmail\’ on another state? Britain could easily have just given the Argentines 24 hours to get off the Falklands… but never did.
Actually, although not the most credible of sources the biography of President François Mitterrand’s psychiatrist CLAIMS that while in session Mitterrand admited that Thatcher said to him if his government didn’t provide the codes by which the Exocet missles could be disarmed she would launch a nuclear strike on Argentina.
Heard that years ago on start the week.
Not a very reputable or necessarily likely story but an interesting one.
You might consider why the Argies diddn’t invade while Jim Callaghan was PM.
I thought they invaded because the survey ship was scrapped and because they needed to prop up the collapsing miliary government with a populist move.
Trident 2?
Ooh you are naughty, but I like you.
How about ! americans showoff £100,000,000,000,000 missile system to be sold to british !
Am I right in thinking that for Trident to be effective the man at the top has to be capable of taking an instant decision to press the button?
Since gordon is incapable of deciding between tea and coffee in the morning without convening a committee……???
I am sure Mr Obama is capable of making the decision if required.
Suck my dick cheney.
Did anyone see Obama on the news this morning BTW? Hummming and haaaawing about Iran, nearly as bad as the Scottish Charmer! Completely clueless without his teleprompter.
Sorry \’ course I\’m not anonymous
Guido what\’s with the backward slashes that are coming up with the apostrophes??
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message Something’s Out There.
Floating in the summer sky
99 red balloons go by.
99 red balloons
Floating in the summer sky -
Panic bells, it’s red alert
There’s something here from somewhere else.
Mr Mr Mr Speaker is an ignorant Hoon. I hope the whole house can agree with me that we knew it all along but were too spineless to do anything about it.
I would have thought the ultimate deterrent would be a personal visit by Jonah.
If the US version is too expensive, why not buy Russian?
Or chinese – is it true their submarines are made of plastic?
or balsa wood
bamboo and sushi.
Maybe Broon can use it to police under age drinking. £100billion to stop £2.99 worth of cider consumption looks like a gordonian type prudent fiscal ratio.
O/T slightly
CNN reporting now that the jobless total is now 2.3 million in the UK.
They also say this is not as high a the 3 million previously reported under another administration but they also forecast that this job loss totla will rise dramatically over the next 12 months.
Perfect..
Not only will we loose our jobs under Labour when the bastards are in opposition AGAIN they will quote 3 million unemployed under the Tories that they themselves caused as they did in the 70\’s/ 80\’s.
I lived through the last cycle of this appalling situation and have been made redundant 3 times. Who do I blame for that?
LABOUR or should it be LAB-OUT
Labour does not work! it never has and it never will.
worried now again I will loose my job. Never worried under the Tories.
We should have an independent detterent. We don\’t need ID cards or a massively costly and intrusive NHS computer system.
Oh hello. Im just a wee lass from the highlands I know nothing aboot wars or warheads. These Patriarchial toys belong in one place in the uk and that is up Gordons ar.. Oh dear Ive gone all laddy
Sod Trident. Invest in turning all buses into Transformers. Public Transport disguised as killing machines. McOptimus Brown!
But of course,we forget the defining factor -absolute incompetence.
The Trident Fleet is being replaced at a cost of £20 Bn. Our government has decided to build these before the Americans start to build the new Trident missile. Therefore, the missile compartment in the sub will be built before they know how big the missile will be. It may not fit. We will have to send it by post.
Due to shit planning,building the new subs has to start now,as 2 of the existing 4 will be de-commissioned in 2024.
So – we could end up with:
No nuclear deterrent
A few Trident missiles to dispose of (E-bay? Broon\’s 2nd/3rd home?)
Another £100 billion hole in the budget.
Perhaps one way of getting Gordon Brown to leave Number 10 is to spread a rumour that Romanians are living there.
Who needs Trident? Surely we could just threaten any aggressor with a state visit from Gordon \”Jonah\” Brown.
If that didn\’t work, we could threaten to send them Tony Blair on a peace and reconciliation mission.
There comes the point when you have to spend o my what you can afford . Not that the idiots we have in charge now will ever admit that GB is bust. Ergo what we can afford to pay for a nuclear weapon needs to be a political topic.for what it’s worth I believe that GB needs an independant nuclear weapon that is versatile and credible, that means it can hit any enemy at any point on the globe with accurate and comensrate or total destructive power. Don’t really care ifit is Trident, modified Trident or some land, sea or air launched system. So long as it works and is affordable.
Not sure that the other options work as well. AND you cannot “be prepared” without it looking like an agressive move.
I heard recently (R4, anniversary of cuban missile crisis) that the vulcans were sitting at the end of the runways with their engines on – partly because if the Russians saw them being dispersed to smaller airfields that would be taken as preparation for a nuclear war.
When you move surface see fleets or redeploy bombers to other areas its more visible (than a submarine you can’t errr.. see under the sea).
Sorry about the spelling and punctuatio, the key pad on this frigging iPhone….
Why cant we just pretend we bought the best nuke in the world. Spend a million so on advertising the imaginery nuke, a few million to US to protect us if threatened with attack then cook the books.
Trident is superb system. Delivered early and underbudget. It costs 3% of the defence of the budget a year to run. That is £1billion. Approximately £250million for the submarines and £750million for Aldermaston.
What of the reaons I believe GB is still (just) a first technological nation is that we can build nuclear submarines that are just about on parr with US submarines. Look at how many nations aspire to nuclear submarines yet struggle to build one (India and Brazil for example.) China may have nuclear submarines but for the the most part they arn’t effective (too noisy.) Removing the need to build ballastic subs would cripple our capability to build future nuclear attack subs. There would be a considerable knock on effect in British industry. A nuclear submarine is more complex than the space shuttle!
On a political note nothing makes laugh more than the chattering middle classes talking about scrapping the deterrent. Nuclear deterrence is defence on the cheap. relying on it has meant money that would have gone into conventional forces went into the wider economy. The wealth that the middle classes use to fund their luxury lifestyles. Without the bomb there would be know four bedroom houses, summers in Tuscany, winter skiing, three or more cars per house.
The middle classes are happy funding defence as long as somebody else is doing the soldiering. The army depends on the working class for squadiies and the upper class for its officers.
Prince Harry goes to war with soldiers off Northern sink estates.
Euan Blair goes to Washington to get pissed and get blow jobs.
I despise the middle classes.
who’s class were you in then ?
Given the current practice of ennobling deadbeats so that they can serve before the leaden throne of the Great Lump of Misery, it is appropriate that ‘Peter Mandelson’ is an anagram of ‘Empanel Rodents’ and of ‘Lamented Person’.
I’d rather spend bilions on a missile system that keeps the US happy, gives the average brit a little peace of mind and could blow the crap out of any of the rogue states, than spend the same amount of money expanding the social care system of this country to cover an even bigger scope of lazy gits.
I can’t see the money saved from not continuing with trident, being used on anything sensible, so why not have some big-boy toys instead.
I think you will find the military top brass are also privately in favour of something cheaper, especially if it means they can keep regular forces intact and well equipped. In any event, you will probably find on firing one of these things in anger that the Yanks have confused imperial and metric co-ordinates and they all converge on Basingstoke (money back only if returned in saleable condition). Given they we are doomed, by the process of out-breeding, to end up in Malik’s dream of the arse end of some fly-blown Muslim Caliphate, it’s probably better that we don’t waste our shekels on a system that could provide the answer to Osama’s wet dreams in one go.
The obvious alternative to buying US nuclear missiles that we can’t even launch at will is to buy similar ones for about 1/10th of the price from the Russians. They’ve got shed-loads of nuclear missilies. I’m sure they’d be delighted to make a few quid from them rather than cutting them into bits as part of some disarmament treaty.
We should buy their old boats and subs too. And their Migs. We could get tooled up at a fraction of the cost of buying this shit off the yanks.
Look, we all know the yanks are about to renege on their in-flight refuelling tanker deal and put folk out of work at Airbus. I say fuck theyanks. Buy the stuff cheaper off the Russians. Or the Israelis. Or the French. Or the Chinese.
If NewLab had not spent close to 4 trillion on “Schools’n'Hospitals”, to no effect whatever, and had not blown another 2 trillion on failed banks, then about 1.6% of this total sum on a few weapons would be seen as small change.
The biggest drain on the MoD is civil service wages. There are about 140,000 on the payroll. The cost us more each month the whole deterrent per year…….
I think it’s great that, even though we’re broke and our conventional forces are borrowing boots from the Americans, and we have enough body armour for about a dozen front line troops, we can still manage this giant, nuclear wank…so long, of course, that the US Navy allows us to use their codes.
We don’t need more nuclear weapons ,we need proper kit for the lads in Iraq and Aghanistan.Body Armour ,mine proof vehicles and above all helicopters that can be used in theatre.We could have all of that and still have money for after care of the boys when they get home.
HERE HERE !
Seven Days to the River Rhine
Last major war planning done by the Soviet Union
Released by the Poles.
The Soviets planned to nuke every NATO nation except France, the UK and the US (The nuclear powers).
The Soviets expected NATO to nuke every Warsaw Pact state except Russia, (the nuclear power)
Complain all you like, but Italy would have been a nuclear wasteland and the UK would not