---

Defence in the World

That good point allows me to return to my old friend Michael Portillo. He has turned into a real ally because he wrote in The Sunday Times on 19 June:"““Whitehall thinks that possessing nuclear weapons helps to secure Britain’s position as one of the five members of the UN security council. But if the ability to blow up the planet is the qualification for presiding over the world’s peacekeeping body, then we should already have rewarded India, Pakistan and Israel with membership and we should be preparing to welcome Iran and North Korea.””" I do not know whether the British Government think that the nuclear deterrent is a pre-condition of retaining our membership of the UN Security Council. I appreciate that the situation is immensely fluid, so we must start to think laterally about the way in which we respond to new challenges, instead of staying locked in an old position.