The Politics Thread

[Strokes]

2bn is the operating costs 17-24bn is the government estimate for replacing trident in 2017.

It would make more sense to put that money into other means of defence, dealing with the main threats we will face and the rest of the world will face in the future, nuclear weapons should never be used, in my opinion, as they cause indiscriminate destruction on such a huge scale that unless the target is somewhere in remotest Siberia it will cause thousands of innocent civilian casualties it can never be justified even in retaliation because it cannot be targeted it devastates huge areas and even more are affected by the fall out doing untold long lasting damage to civilian areas.

It is as simple as that, the £100bn saved over 40 years is an added bonus and can be put to much better uses.

Nah, I'd rather pay my taxes towards the nuclear deterrent, than have £100 billion of taxes wasted elsewhere.

[Guest MattP]

Leanne Wood, Charlotte Church and a Kinnock on Question Time tonight.

Don't think I'll see this through.

[BlueSi13]

2bn is the operating costs 17-24bn is the government estimate for replacing trident in 2017.

It would make more sense to put that money into other means of defence, dealing with the main threats we will face and the rest of the world will face in the future, nuclear weapons should never be used, in my opinion, as they cause indiscriminate destruction on such a huge scale that unless the target is somewhere in remotest Siberia it will cause thousands of innocent civilian casualties it can never be justified even in retaliation because it cannot be targeted it devastates huge areas and even more are affected by the fall out doing untold long lasting damage to civilian areas.

It is as simple as that, the £100bn saved over 40 years is an added bonus and can be put to much better uses.

OK so let's take that £24bn as a worst case scenario.  The UK annual expenditure is £743bn currently.  That would equal approximately 3% of the annual spend.  Doesn't seem such a bad price to pay to guarantee the peace for the next 40 years.  

 

Besides moving away from Trident (Matt is correct that it will pass regardless of Corbyn's opposition) there is potentially a wider issue at play here.  Corbyn has made it clear he wouldn't push the nuclear button, fair enough, but what would his reaction be if Argentina leads another assault on the Falkland Islands?  What would his reaction be if an emotionally-jilted and desperate Spain decides to roll tanks into Gibraltar upon its loss of Catalonia?  What would his reaction be if Iran were to try and capture more Royal Navy personal or sink one of our surface vessels?  Would he sanction military action in response?  It's little wonder military chiefs are already beginning to make their worries and concerns public.

[Webbo]

Leanne Wood, Charlotte Church and a Kinnock on Question Time tonight.

Don't think I'll see this through.

Tbf Charlotte Church has got a lovely pair.

[Captain...]

That's for Corbyn to say, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't use nukes in those situations.

I believe he would use non military means as a first resort and military means as a last resort.

[Guest MattP]

Enjoyed QT, one of the best aaudiences I've seen.

The audience were far more sensible than the panel, the left are terrific at telling everyone what they shouldn't do but hopeless at telling everyone what they would do.

Good contest for daftest comment of the night predictably between Wood and Church - I think getting ISIS around the negotiating table just edged out the claim that climate change caused the civil war. Fair effort for Church's line about how we should ask the Syrian people what outcome they want as well, maybe she could set astall up in Damascus.

Is that true what was said about Ukraine being the only country who has given up nuclear weapons in the last ten years? Would Russia have invaded had they not.

[inckley fox]

OK so let's take that £24bn as a worst case scenario.  The UK annual expenditure is £743bn currently.  That would equal approximately 3% of the annual spend.  Doesn't seem such a bad price to pay to guarantee the peace for the next 40 years.  

 

Besides moving away from Trident (Matt is correct that it will pass regardless of Corbyn's opposition) there is potentially a wider issue at play here.  Corbyn has made it clear he wouldn't push the nuclear button, fair enough, but what would his reaction be if Argentina leads another assault on the Falkland Islands?  What would his reaction be if an emotionally-jilted and desperate Spain decides to roll tanks into Gibraltar upon its loss of Catalonia?  What would his reaction be if Iran were to try and capture more Royal Navy personal or sink one of our surface vessels?  Would he sanction military action in response?  It's little wonder military chiefs are already beginning to make their worries and concerns public.

 

There are a lot of worst case scenarios here!

 

The questions you ask are very valid ones. But I'd also like to know how Cameron, or Brown or Blair before him, would react to an Argentinian or a Spanish invasion.

 

In the case of Spain, it would cost them their EU membership if they invaded another member state and, seeing as the Spanish parties opposing austerity and EU membership are the least likely to sanction an aggressive foreign policy, I'd consider this pretty unlikely. Perhaps, by the time Corbyn became PM, we wouldn't be a member state any more, but the Spanish would still see the arse ripped out of their property and tourism industries. It's very, very unlikely to happen. It didn't happen under Franco, so I doubt Rajoy is eager to make his name in such a manner. In fact Catalonian independence is also very unlikely, seeing as the separatists are severely fractured and couldn't achieve a majority share of the vote in this week's elections.

 

A far more likely scenario would be the collapse of the NHS in the UK. I'm not as ready with figures as you are, but I'd imagine 24bn was around 20% of the annual NHS expenditure, so I suppose the money could be very well spent there.

 

And, in truth, if Argentina invades the Falklands, or Spain Gibraltar, or Iran sinks a surface vessel, I'm not sure how useful the nuclear deterrent would be. The widely held view - albeit a flawed one, as far as I can see - is that the last remnants of colonialism, the Falklands and Gibraltar included, are something that should be done away with by the UK. If we responded to Spain rolling its tanks in by moving our battleships in, we'd still come away with the sympathies of the UN. If we threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Madrid we'd either be looked on as a laughing stock, or a threat to world security.

 

Either way, they are questions which no UK political leader has addressed in detail. Corbyn, for his part, generally opposes interventionism, but he went to lengths to state that this wasn't unconditional. And if it's your own country being attacked, it's hardly intervention any more. His stance isn't especially far removed from that of plenty of other past and present European leaders. We mentioned Spain - well, Zapatero would be a good starting point.

 

What isn't, on the other hand, acceptable is a politicised military warning of revolt if a democratic election doesn't go according to their liking, and the Ministry of Defence rightly made this clear. The dangers of that are far closer to home, and potentially disastrous to the UK, than the faint possibility that we'll one day need a nuclear bomb to deal with a rogue Middle Eastern state, or a Spanish invasion.

[leicsmac]

For goodness sake.

 

I'm saying this until I'm blue in the face, and I'm going to keep saying it until someone refutes it rather than just talking around it. 

 

The reason we shouldn't have Trident is not because of the expenditure, or because of some supposed deterrent value. The reason we don't need it is because an nuclear attack on the UK (or indeed practically any other nation in the Northern Hemisphere) WILL be met with escalation and a nuclear response from other sources either in reprisal or as preemptive defence. That means that if one nuclear weapon goes off, they all go off. Therefore, as long as there are just two opposing nations with them in large numbers, the balance of power is kept with no other nation having to have them.

 

The deterrent value of Trident is a myth, for that reason. BMT made the point pretty clear in his post on the last page. 

[leicsmac]

Enjoyed QT, one of the best aaudiences I've seen.

The audience were far more sensible than the panel, the left are terrific at telling everyone what they shouldn't do but hopeless at telling everyone what they would do.

Good contest for daftest comment of the night predictably between Wood and Church - I think getting ISIS around the negotiating table just edged out the claim that climate change caused the civil war. Fair effort for Church's line about how we should ask the Syrian people what outcome they want as well, maybe she could set astall up in Damascus.

Is that true what was said about Ukraine being the only country who has given up nuclear weapons in the last ten years? Would Russia have invaded had they not.

 

I don't reckon so about the last ten years thing, when the USSR split in 1991 all of the nuclear weapons in places like Ukraine, Kazakhstan etc were given back to the Russian Federation. In most cases the new states couldn't wait to get rid of them.

 

The only well established nation I can think of that had nukes and gave them up was South Africa.

[Kopfkino]

Enjoyed QT, one of the best aaudiences I've seen.

The audience were far more sensible than the panel, the left are terrific at telling everyone what they shouldn't do but hopeless at telling everyone what they would do.

Good contest for daftest comment of the night predictably between Wood and Church - I think getting ISIS around the negotiating table just edged out the claim that climate change caused the civil war. Fair effort for Church's line about how we should ask the Syrian people what outcome they want as well, maybe she could set astall up in Damascus.

Is that true what was said about Ukraine being the only country who has given up nuclear weapons in the last ten years? Would Russia have invaded had they not.

After one of our politics lectures, we have an optional hour where we can stay and discuss with a couple of profs about what's going on in politics round the world. It's true, they gave them up in 94/95 after security assurances from the US and Russia. They kept a third of the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities apparently.

Whether it would have made any difference with Russia and Crimea etc, I doubt it tbh

[Rincewind]

I see that Conservatives having passes for the party conference in Manchester are being warned to keep them hidden when walking around the city centre.

 

In other news.

http://www.rt.com/uk/317185-cancer-patients-welfare-cuts/

 

http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/30/a-homeless-community-could-be-jailed-for-setting-up-their-own-shelter-5414823/?ito=facebook

 

http://streetskitchen.co.uk/?p=3251

[Strokes]

For goodness sake.

I'm saying this until I'm blue in the face, and I'm going to keep saying it until someone refutes it rather than just talking around it.

The reason we shouldn't have Trident is not because of the expenditure, or because of some supposed deterrent value. The reason we don't need it is because an nuclear attack on the UK (or indeed practically any other nation in the Northern Hemisphere) WILL be met with escalation and a nuclear response from other sources either in reprisal or as preemptive defence. That means that if one nuclear weapon goes off, they all go off. Therefore, as long as there are just two opposing nations with them in large numbers, the balance of power is kept with no other nation having to have them.

The deterrent value of Trident is a myth, for that reason. BMT made the point pretty clear in his post on the last page.

But what if our allies disarm too, then where does that leave us?

[leicsmac]

But what if our allies disarm too, then where does that leave us?

Missing the point.

I said that as long as there are two nations with sizable arsenals and differing ideologies, any nuclear attack on anywhere in the northern hemisphere (whether it's the UK, France or Mongolia) by one will be met by one from the other, resulting in escalation and nuclear holocaust. It doesn't matter if the country hit is allies with either nation or not, the other country WILL respond because they won't take the chance that the other country will target them next.

Nuclear equilibrium as a deterrent only requires two reasonably opposed parties. Everything else is purely ornamental and unnecessary

[Strokes]

Missing the point.

I said that as long as there are two nations with sizable arsenals and differing ideologies, any nuclear attack on anywhere in the northern hemisphere (whether it's the UK, France or Mongolia) by one will be met by one from the other, resulting in escalation and nuclear holocaust. It doesn't matter if the country hit is allies with either nation or not, the other country WILL respond because they won't take the chance that the other country will target them next.

Nuclear equilibrium as a deterrent only requires two reasonably opposed parties. Everything else is purely ornamental and unnecessary

I'm not missing the point at all, and I don't think it's quite as simple as you make out. We have no idea how future alliegencies will pan out and whether or not we may be called upon to protect them or them us. Having the capability and not using it, it much better than not having it and needing it.

[leicsmac]

I'm not missing the point at all, and I don't think it's quite as simple as you make out. We have no idea how future alliegencies will pan out and whether or not we may be called upon to protect them or them us. Having the capability and not using it, it much better than not having it and needing it.

Then perhaps I'm not making the point clearly enough, and for that I apologise. I'll try to clarify.

Nuclear war is an outcome where the entire earth loses. However the equilibrium caused by two nations having them is useful to keep both they and other nations in check. However, only the weapons from those two players are needed to maintain the balance, for the reason I gave above. Other players are both unnecessary and may actually have a destabilising effect the more there are.

If you feel there's a problem with my logic here or believe that anything more than two opposing nations carrying just enough weapons for global catastrophe has an additional deterring effect, then please, I'd like to hear your take on why. I could be wrong with this but so far I've not heard anything that causes me to think the logic is faulty here. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

Normally I would agree with you about such an issue being more complex than it seems, but with nuclear weapons I think the premise is actually that simple.

[MooseBreath]

Then perhaps I'm not making the point clearly enough, and for that I apologise. I'll try to clarify.

Nuclear war is an outcome where the entire earth loses. However the equilibrium caused by two nations having them is useful to keep both they and other nations in check. However, only the weapons from those two players are needed to maintain the balance, for the reason I gave above. Other players are both unnecessary and may actually have a destabilising effect the more there are.

If you feel there's a problem with my logic here or believe that anything more than two opposing nations carrying just enough weapons for global catastrophe has an additional deterring effect, then please, I'd like to hear your take on why. I could be wrong with this but so far I've not heard anything that causes me to think the logic is faulty here. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

Normally I would agree with you about such an issue being more complex than it seems, but with nuclear weapons I think the premise is actually that simple.

It's wrong because it relies on the assumption that the UK is and will always be under the protection of one of the two nuclear powers in your scenario. This is a loose assumption.

Also, I think your general line of logic is faulty too. It's an interesting thought experiment but doesn't really stack up in the real world. The whole world doesn't lose if there is a nuclear war. The whole world didn't lose when the US nuked Japan. At most we'd have a few more Hiroshima's dotted around but it wouldn't be game over for the planet. An exchange of nuclear weapons doesn't even mean total annihilation for either country.

[Dr The Singh]

It's wrong because it relies on the assumption that the UK is and will always be under the protection of one of the two nuclear powers in your scenario. This is a loose assumption.

Also, I think your general line of logic is faulty too. It's an interesting thought experiment but doesn't really stack up in the real world. The whole world doesn't lose if there is a nuclear war. The whole world didn't lose when the US nuked Japan. At most we'd have a few more Hiroshima's dotted around but it wouldn't be game over for the planet. An exchange of nuclear weapons doesn't even mean total annihilation for either country.

Depends on which nations you talk about, US and Russia could destroy any planet, however nuclear nations like India and Pakistan only have the ability to bomb each other and nations around them.  God forbid Pakistan gets long range nuclear ability and we get rid of ours!!

[Guest]

OK so let's take that £24bn as a worst case scenario.  The UK annual expenditure is £743bn currently.  That would equal approximately 3% of the annual spend.  Doesn't seem such a bad price to pay to guarantee the peace for the next 40 years.  

 

Besides moving away from Trident (Matt is correct that it will pass regardless of Corbyn's opposition) there is potentially a wider issue at play here.  Corbyn has made it clear he wouldn't push the nuclear button, fair enough, but what would his reaction be if Argentina leads another assault on the Falkland Islands?  What would his reaction be if an emotionally-jilted and desperate Spain decides to roll tanks into Gibraltar upon its loss of Catalonia?  What would his reaction be if Iran were to try and capture more Royal Navy personal or sink one of our surface vessels?  Would he sanction military action in response?  It's little wonder military chiefs are already beginning to make their worries and concerns public.

 

Do you REALLY think that any PM would blitz Argentina with nuclear weapons because they attacked the Falkland islands? Btw the nuclear threat didn't stp them last time did it?

 

Do you really think that any PM would bomb Spain with nuclear weapons if they went into Gibraltar?

 

You've actually just proved that the nuclear deterrent hasn't stopped attacks on British personnel/Britain with the three examples you've given.

[Guest MattP]

For goodness sake.

 

I'm saying this until I'm blue in the face, and I'm going to keep saying it until someone refutes it rather than just talking around it. 

 

The reason we shouldn't have Trident is not because of the expenditure, or because of some supposed deterrent value. The reason we don't need it is because an nuclear attack on the UK (or indeed practically any other nation in the Northern Hemisphere) WILL be met with escalation and a nuclear response from other sources either in reprisal or as preemptive defence. That means that if one nuclear weapon goes off, they all go off. Therefore, as long as there are just two opposing nations with them in large numbers, the balance of power is kept with no other nation having to have them.

 

The deterrent value of Trident is a myth, for that reason. BMT made the point pretty clear in his post on the last page. 

 

Mac you are starting to come across like a religious preacher here, the brightest and best minds on the planet argue over whether these things are a deterrent or not, I personally think we have some evidence that is it, but I wouldn't be so arrogant to say anyone who believed otherwise is wrong and chasing a myth.

 

We won't always be an ally of one of the two biggest nations on the planet, things can change and I wouldn't actually want just those two as the only serious influence on every global conflict either.

 

I see that Conservatives having passes for the party conference in Manchester are being warned to keep them hidden when walking around the city centre.

 

In other news.

http://www.rt.com/uk/317185-cancer-patients-welfare-cuts/

 

http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/30/a-homeless-community-could-be-jailed-for-setting-up-their-own-shelter-5414823/?ito=facebook

 

http://streetskitchen.co.uk/?p=3251

 

The new kinder more polite politics, calm and clear without any abuse, just make sure if you have a different opinion though you hide it away or you could be attacked.

[Dr The Singh]

Do you REALLY think that any PM would blitz Argentina with nuclear weapons because they attacked the Falkland islands? Btw the nuclear threat didn't stp them last time did it?

 

Do you really think that any PM would bomb Spain with nuclear weapons if they went into Gibraltar?

 

You've actually just proved that the nuclear deterrent hasn't stopped attacks on British personnel/Britain with the three examples you've given.

No but Pakistan has 'first strike policy' on there nuclear arms, and in theory it would........the only reason why India hasn't wiped Pakistan off the map is because of Pakistan's nuclear first strike policy!!

 

When you got foooked up nations like that on the planet....

[Guest MattP]

This shows the mountain Corbyn has to overcome among the wider public. His popularity ratings are incredible. (He does appear to have got the Green vote back though)

 

[leicsmac]

It's wrong because it relies on the assumption that the UK is and will always be under the protection of one of the two nuclear powers in your scenario. This is a loose assumption.

Also, I think your general line of logic is faulty too. It's an interesting thought experiment but doesn't really stack up in the real world. The whole world doesn't lose if there is a nuclear war. The whole world didn't lose when the US nuked Japan. At most we'd have a few more Hiroshima's dotted around but it wouldn't be game over for the planet. An exchange of nuclear weapons doesn't even mean total annihilation for either country.

 

As to your first point, I covered that above. It doesn't matter if we're allied or not with either one of those nations - if any nation (with the very loose exception of North Korea) in the Northern Hemisphere is attacked by a nuclear weapon (including the UK), the other nation will respond as a matter of course - either in pre-emptive self defence thinking that they won't take the chance that the other country will target them next, or backed by the rest of the world furious that such a measure was used in the first place. 

 

As to your second, the strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were carried out for one reason because the US wanted the world to know that they had the Bomb, and also because as the sole nuclear power at the time they knew they could expect no reprisal in kind. You can go ahead and believe that a nuclear war can be limited and winnable (which would in fact mean that nuclear proliferation is a good idea) and you might well be right, but I honestly think that in this day and age escalation is an inevitability once one nuke goes off and the more nations that possess nukes the more inevitable it becomes. And I think that such an exchange, while probably not an extinction event, would at the very least mean the end of advanced civilisation across the globe for a few centuries.

 

 

Mac you are starting to come across like a religious preacher here, the brightest and best minds on the planet argue over whether these things are a deterrent or not, I personally think we have some evidence that is it, but I wouldn't be so arrogant to say anyone who believed otherwise is wrong and chasing a myth.

 

We won't always be an ally of one of the two biggest nations on the planet, things can change and I wouldn't actually want just those two as the only serious influence on every global conflict either.

 

 

Sorry about that Matt. I just got a bit frustrated with people trying to justify the keeping of Trident with reasons that seem flawed. If someone could show me conclusively that nuclear proliferation and keeping the current level of nations and nuclear stockpiles adds meaningful additional deterrence to prevent a nuclear war, then I'd be happy to change my mind on this. You know me pretty well on here - do I really push a losing point that much without at least conceding some of it when there have been debates on here in the past?

 

Given the amount of weapons both the US and Russia have compared to the rest of the world, I would say in terms of that they are the only serious influence anyway. Other nations with the Bomb right now could threaten them, but not to the point of being able to 'beat' or even mutually destroy them in a nuclear exchange.

[Guest MattP]

Sorry about that Matt. I just got a bit frustrated with people trying to justify the keeping of Trident with reasons that seem flawed. If someone could show me conclusively that nuclear proliferation and keeping the current level of nations and nuclear stockpiles adds meaningful additional deterrence to prevent a nuclear war, then I'd be happy to change my mind on this. You know me pretty well on here - do I really push a losing point that much without at least conceding some of it when there have been debates on here in the past?

 

Given the amount of weapons both the US and Russia have compared to the rest of the world, I would say in terms of that they are the only serious influence anyway. Other nations with the Bomb right now could threaten them, but not to the point of being able to 'beat' or even mutually destroy them in a nuclear exchange.

 

No worries, there won't ever be complete proof whether nuclear weapons are a deterrent or not until we get to the point where it probably won't even matter, we can only guess at the minute.

 

In terms of British politics it's pointless anyway, they are up for renewal next year and the government will be doing it, they also do it with the support of the British people, only in Scotland could it be argued that the population don't want to renew it.

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13198976.Poll__25__of_Brits_and_48__of_Scots_think_UK_should_scrap_Trident/

[MooseBreath]

Sounds like academic crap logic to me. Sounds great but doesn't stack up in the real world at all.

[Guest MattP]

No spin here on the trip to Scotland.