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Defence Policy

A sinner has indeed repented. The only question is: what is the nature of the repentance? The headlines make that quite clear. The Daily Mail says ““Brown pledges £25 billion to new Trident””. The Financial Times says ““Brown in promise to replace Trident””. The Daily Telegraph headline is ““Brown in favour of updating Trident””, while the headlines in The Times are ““Brown ready to call the shots by replacing Trident missiles””, and ““Britain to buy new nuclear deterrent””. The headline list would be incomplete without the trusty old Daily Mirror’s ““Nukey Brown”” and ““Gordon: I will back £25bn A-bomb””. The irrepressible Minister for the Armed Forces has claimed that the Chancellor said nothing new but was merely repeating what was in the Labour general election manifesto. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, but nevertheless I detected a straw in the wind in the words that the Chancellor used last night. He talked about retaining our nuclear deterrent, but he also used the words"““in this Parliament, and the long term also””." It is hard to see how the phrase ““the long term also”” could apply if he was talking only about retaining the present deterrent. However, we do not have to rely on that exegesis, as The Guardian—which knows about these things—reports:"““Treasury sources made it clear that although Mr. Brown talked about retaining the nuclear deterrent rather than replacing it, the chancellor was giving his personal backing to a new generation of missiles.””" That is a clear answer to the question that my colleagues and I have asked Ministers on many occasions: are they talking only about retaining the existing deterrent, or about a decision to replace it? If the Minister’s interpretation of the Chancellor’s comments is correct, why has the Chancellor not been rushing to the media today to say, ““Chaps, sorry, you’ve got it all wrong. All those headlines are wrong, and I was merely saying what we’ve said all along—that we’re not going to scrap the weapons that we already have. I have no thought in my mind about replacement.”” The Prime Minister’s spokesman has been doing his best to clarify matters—not in respect of replacement, but on whether there will be a vote on the issue. Much to the satisfaction of people like the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen)—