A suggestion for Labour on Trident

Owen Smith's failed pitch to the Labour selectorate was basically "Corbynism with bonus weapons of mass destruction", so the people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn may now want to ask for a refund, because it looks like Corbynism plus Trident is exactly what they're going to get anyway.  A few months ago, I defended Corbyn when he was met with affected bewilderment over his statement (which was really an affirmation of the bleedin' obvious) that he would never authorise the use of nuclear weapons as Prime Minister.  "This buffoon doesn't understand that a nuclear deterrent is already defunct without the credible threat of its use!" was the cry.  The reality, of course, is that -

a) undermining the nuclear "deterrent" is kind of the object of the exercise for any lifelong opponent of nuclear weapons,

and

b) Trident is not, unfortunately, rendered useless simply by one Prime Minister at one particular moment at time saying that he would not fire the missiles.  Unless he actually disarms, the weapons are still there in working order for his successor to use after he departs the stage.

So Corbyn's position was perfectly logical and consistent, but I suspect it's going to be much harder to justify now that Labour's collective stance is apparently that "we must get behind" a weapons system that their leader considers to be abhorrent and unusable.  In view of which, let me make a modest suggestion.

We all know that the 'deterrent' theory is utter garbage anyway - does anyone seriously think that Switzerland is more at risk than we are of nuclear annihilation over the next twenty years because it doesn't have a 'deterrent' and we do?  If anything, the reverse is true.  But just for the sake of argument, let's look at the issue from the perspective of someone who truly believes that we are somehow being kept safe by a deterrent effect.  That person would surely have to acknowledge that, like it or not, the deterrent would indeed temporarily cease to exist for the duration of a hypothetical Corbyn premiership.  Corbyn would never authorise the use of nuclear weapons.  He would ensure that his named 'second person' is someone who would never authorise the use of nuclear weapons.  His handwritten 'letters of last resort', to be opened by Trident submarine commanders in the event of the government being wiped out, will order that nuclear weapons should never be used.  What's more, any theoretical enemy of the UK will know all of these facts to be true.  That ensures there will be no deterrent whatsoever from the moment Corbyn takes office until the moment he resigns, and yet Labour are currently proposing to waste huge amounts of money by having the non-deterrent redundantly at sea during the whole of that period, for every hour of every day of every week.

So why not simply pledge to take Trident out of operation (apart maybe from the odd training exercise) for the duration of Corbyn's tenure as PM, and save the fabled "hardworking families" of this country a lot of cash?  What exactly would we be losing?  Perhaps Owen Smith can explain.

*  *  *

Fanciful notion though it may seem, I genuinely went to a "separatist dinner" earlier tonight in Glasgow.  I think the common factor linking the people who were invited is that they are all active on Twitter, so I was kind of an odd one out, because I'm not really a heavy Twitter user (leaving aside the odd epic slanging-match with Duncan Hothersall and Neil "Alligators" Lovatt, naturally).  But I did know a few of the people there.  Not a huge amount to report from the evening, although my jaw dropped a tad when I learned that a prolific nationalist Twitter user who I had always assumed (with a certain amount of justification) to be a man is actually a female of the species.  And for the first half of dinner I was sitting next to Katie McGarvey, who brandished a flick-knife and then flung a large quantity of alcohol onto my trousers.  I'm sure you get the picture.  (Actually, the weapon came with dinner, and she apologised profusely for accidentally knocking over her drink.)

If Scottish Labour is to be "autonomous", the memo will eventually have to reach Maria Eagle

Would it be terribly insensitive of me to point out that Labour have got to get their story straight on whether the Scottish Labour party is actually autonomous or not, and just how far any autonomy extends?  The Shadow Defence Secretary Maria Eagle said this yesterday -

"I welcome the input of Scottish Labour and its conference into our internal debate, they’re one of many important voices that there are across the Labour movement about this issue. But let’s be very clear about what this does and does not mean. This does not change our policy. Defence isn’t a devolved matter, so Labour party policy has to be set at a national party level, at a UK level."

That flatly contradicts what we've been hearing recently, not only from Kezia Dugdale, but also from Eagle's own Shadow Cabinet colleague Ian Murray. According to them, the vote on Trident at the weekend was not a relatively minor "input" into a UK-wide "internal debate", but the binding decision of an autonomous party which is entirely free to develop policy on both devolved and non-devolved matters alike. Dugdale has even strongly implied that it will not be possible to whip Scottish Labour parliamentarians to vote in favour of Trident until some sort of formal negotiation has occurred between the UK and Scottish parties to thrash out an agreed platform for fighting an election, presumably along the lines of policy negotiations between the CDU and CSU in Germany.

Eagle's gaffe reminds me very much of Chuka Umunna's extraordinarily blunt slapdown of Jim Murphy during the general election campaign. London Labour figures always seem to let their guard slip when they're not talking primarily about Scotland, but instead about a subject of UK-wide interest that happens to have a Scottish dimension. Their true contempt for their Scottish branch office suddenly comes shining through : "This has got nothing to do with haggis or tartan. We deal with the grown-up stuff."

Has Corbyn made things worse for Scottish Labour?

I missed the first half of Question Time because I was at the World Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow (and I can tell you that the management of the Hydro need to urgently acquaint themselves with a new-fangled concept known as "air-conditioning"), but I switched on in time to see a chap in the audience melodramatically claim that Jeremy Corbyn's leadership is consolidating the "one-party states" in both Scotland and England.  Now, it's quite true that the evidence so far strongly suggests that Corbyn has failed to turn things around for Labour in Scotland, but is there any evidence that he's actually a drag on the party's support in this part of the world?

The YouGov poll earlier this week suggested that the public's assessment of how well Corbyn is doing as leader is almost identical north and south of the border -

Do you think that Jeremy Corbyn is doing well or badly as leader of the Labour party?

BRITAIN-WIDE :

Well 30%
Badly 50%

SCOTTISH SUBSAMPLE :

Well 30%
Badly 48%

That being the case, you'd think he'd also be having a near-identical effect on Labour's electoral prospects in Scotland and England - but you'd be wrong. Although the percentage of people in Scotland who say that they're more likely to vote Labour under the new leader (17%) is roughly the same as the corresponding Britain-wide figure (16%), the percentage of people who are now less likely to vote Labour is dramatically lower in Scotland, at just 9%. The Britain-wide figure is 23%. So it's certainly hard to conclude on the basis of this poll that Corbyn is personally responsible for Scottish Labour's present predicament. That said, there doesn't seem to be much potential for him to do the party a whole lot of good either, because even if you combine the people who say they are more likely to vote Labour under Corbyn with the 8% who say they would probably have voted Labour anyway, that still leaves you with just 25% of the Scottish subsample - which is roughly the share of the vote that Labour got in their general election drubbing in May. 56% of the Scottish subsample say they probably wouldn't vote Labour regardless of the leader, which is an astounding 19% higher than the equivalent Britain-wide figure.

So, yes, Scottish Labour are in a hole. But I'm still not entirely convinced that it's sensible for Kezia Dugdale to keep banging on about just how deep that hole is. Her "rallying cry" tonight went something like this -

"Things are grim for Scottish Labour. We're in a right old mess. It's really, really bad. But do you know what? That's the reason I put myself forward as leader. I'm enthused by the prospect of overseeing failure. That's what this party is all about. I'll be honest with you - I don't think we can turn things around by May. We'll give it a go, but only up to a point. We can't expect miracles, so there's no point in tiring ourselves out. And I promise you this - even though we're going to lose, we'll make sure we lose by sticking to traditional Labour values. Such as happiness. Love. Children. Sunshine. Chocolate (in moderation). It's our belief in these things that makes us TOTALLY DIFFERENT to every other political party in the known universe. We've just got to keep existing. We're needed."

* * *

If there's any downside at all for the SNP in the fact that their main opponents have been reduced to just one MP, we may have stumbled across it tonight. Keith Brown challenged Kezia to prove Scottish Labour's new "autonomy" is meaningful by ordering their sole representative at Westminster to vote against Trident renewal. Ian Murray quickly moved to get her off the hook by tweeting this -

"I'll not be voting for renewal. That's a long term promise to my constituents and nothing to do with party autonomy."

Even if there had been two or three Scottish Labour MPs, it wouldn't have been anything like that easy. But there again, Murray has got off the hook himself, because if anyone but Corbyn had become leader, he would presumably have had to make a choice between remaining in the Shadow Cabinet, and keeping his promise to his constituents. Mandy Rhodes followed up on his tweet by asking if he would be defying the whip on Trident, and this was his response -

"we are a broad church where ppl sometimes have different views."

That's utterly disingenuous. The Labour party may be a broad church, but the collective position of the Shadow Cabinet is a very different matter. In normal circumstances, a three-line whip would be imposed on a subject as important as Trident, and defying that whip would be inconsistent with remaining a member of the Shadow Cabinet. But fortunately for Murray, there's not much prospect of a three-line whip being imposed when it would make the party leader a "rebel".

Mind you, isn't it interesting that he used the words "I'll not be voting for renewal", rather than "I'll be voting against renewal"? Call me cynical, but that sounds very much like he wants to keep open the option of abstention. Well, he's a Labour MP after all.

Let's hope Corbyn fails (and not just in the way you might think)

It seems that Richard Heller, the man who infamously wrote part of Jeremy Corbyn's conference speech five years in advance, wasn't quite so keen on other words that the new Labour leader uttered in Brighton -

"Then came his ridiculous remark at conference last week that he would never hit the nuclear button. No leader ever has to answer hypothetical questions about nuclear war: by so doing, he failed to acknowledge that Trident has no point unless it creates uncertainty about the risks of threatening us."

Do these people seriously not get it, or are they just playing dumb?  Undermining Britain's so-called nuclear "deterrent" is exactly what Corbyn is trying to do.  Moreover, it's exactly what he was elected to do.  He wasn't elected in spite of his opposition to nuclear weapons, he was elected - at least in part - because of it.  Rendering Trident pointless would not be some kind of naive blunder, it would be a mark of astonishing success.

Unfortunately, as I've already pointed out, it's impossible for an individual leader to turn Britain into a de facto non-nuclear state simply by declaring that he personally would not use Trident.  Only actual disarmament can do the trick, because for as long as the weapons are kicking around, there's always the chance that a new leader with a different stance will come along and use them.

All the same, though, it really is extraordinary how some commentators are utterly incapable of seeing this issue through anything other than a conservative, militaristic prism.  Unilateralism is "old-fashioned" and "unrealistic".  (Try telling that to the 95% of countries that don't have nuclear weapons, and view Britain as a relic.)  A unilateralist who sticks to his principles once elected is "showing signs of inexperience".  And a unilateralist who comes even vaguely close to doing what he was elected to do is a "bad leader".

If that's the definition of failure, let's hope Corbyn fails miserably.

The Corbyn/McDonnell 'Big Lie' approach to taking on the SNP isn't just cynical - it's also bound to fail

I enjoyed listening to John McDonnell's speech at the Labour conference.  There's been a lot of talk about him and Corbyn hastily backtracking on their principles since they took over, but there wasn't much evidence of that today - it was full-fat left-wing fare.  He did try to tackle the charge of "deficit denial", but only by listing the cuts he would make at the expense of wealthy people.

It struck me once again that Labour have probably elected the wrong Campaign Group MP as leader - McDonnell is the articulate one, who exudes an air of competence and even has a touch of charisma about him.  But realistically the candidate had to be Corbyn, because by all accounts McDonnell is so loathed among the PLP that there's no way he'd have made it onto the ballot paper, not even to "widen the debate".

The one part of the speech that grated, of course, was the disingenuous, rabble-rousing attack on the SNP.  The Labour left, to their intense discredit, appear to have settled on the 'Big Lie' approach to taking on Nicola Sturgeon - they think they can somehow convince people that she opposes the living wage, is plotting the privatisation of CalMac, and was responsible for the privatisation of ScotRail (even though the latter took place in the 1990s under John Major, and before the Scottish Parliament even existed!).  Most voters don't pay attention to the detail, so it's not totally inconceivable that they might fall for some of this garbage.  But the snag is that they won't buy into the headline summary, namely that the SNP are pro-austerity or austerity-neutral (implied by McDonnell's assertion that Labour are now the only anti-austerity party in Scotland).  Who, seriously, is going to believe that claim after the events of the general election campaign?  If your main attack line doesn't ring true to people, it's simply not going to get you anywhere.

Still, I don't blame McDonnell for going through the motions.  Bashing the SNP is a rite of passage for new and slightly distrusted Shadow Cabinet members - a bit similar to posh-boy initiation ceremonies involving dead pigs.  He had to do it, and he got it out of the way in such a brief and tokenistic manner that the real impression I'm left with is that Labour's heart isn't in the coming Scottish battle.  They've already handed the SNP an enormous gift on Trident, which is going to make one particular part of next year's leaders' debates almost painfully easy for Sturgeon.  "Labour may have two opinions on Trident, but we have only one.  We've made up our minds.  We're against it.  Labour are so divided that they ran away from even discussing it at their conference.  Vote for a party that knows what it thinks and isn't afraid to say it."

Kezia's fairy-tale on nuclear disarmament

Can anyone help me out here?  STV are quoting the new Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale as having made this baffling statement on nuclear weapons -

"I'm proud of the fact that my party is a party of nuclear disarmament. More warheads were abandoned under Labour than in any other country in recent history."

Not according to this website, they weren't.  Britain is estimated to have had 203 nuclear warheads when Labour took office in 1997 - and 225 when they were ejected in 2010.  I'm sure that Kezia thinks she must mean something, so does anyone have a clue how a net INCREASE of 22 warheads somehow represents "more warheads abandoned than in any other country in recent history"?  To put it in perspective, Russia had 40,000 warheads in the late 1980s, and has now reduced that to around 5000.  At the other end of the scale, South Africa had a small nuclear weapons system that was totally scrapped at the end of the apartheid years.

The only minor nod to disarmament during the Blair/Brown years was the ditching of the RAF's nuclear capability - which was very modest compared to Trident, although ironically it was the only part of the arsenal that could be genuinely called "independent", ie. not dependent on the Americans.  Since the late 90s, the whole idea of an "independent nuclear deterrent" has been something of a fiction.

Kezia's broader point will raise a wry smile -

"I think the way to [disarm] is together on a multilateral basis. I recognise, however, there are people in the Labour Party and there are people who desperately want to support and join the Labour Party that take a different view. So why can't you have a situation where we're not afraid to debate these ideas?"

Translation : If Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader, I need an elegant way of reversing official policy without losing face. But if by any chance Corbyn is stopped, we'll have our "debate" and carry on as before.

The destroyer of worlds

Seventy years ago today, a nuclear weapon was used for the first time in warfare.  It was an act of genocide, immediately and indiscriminately killing between 60,000 and 80,000 Japanese men, women and children. Within four months, the death toll had risen to anything between 90,000 and 165,000.  Tens of thousands more died as a result of long-term health effects over the following decades.  All because of a single bomb, and a single explosion.

Britain's nuclear weapons system is based just thirty miles or so from where I am sitting right now.  It consists of almost 200 warheads, each of which has EIGHT TIMES more destructive power than the bomb dropped on August 6th, 1945.

Both the Conservatives and Labour want to renew those weapons, at a cost of £100 billion.  That money will either -

a) be wasted on weapons that are never used.

b) cause the deaths of tens of millions of people, perhaps contributing to the destruction of human civilisation within a single day.

There is no third option.

That is all.

Clarity on Trident

Craig Murray has asked for clarity on whether the SNP would withdraw support for a minority Labour government if it joined forces with the Tories in the Commons to force through the renewal of Trident.  I think the SNP have been pretty clear, actually - the scrapping of Trident would be an absolute condition for a confidence-and-supply arrangement, and without it Labour would have to go it alone and seek support on a vote-by-vote basis.  That would mean looking to right-wing parties like the Tories, UKIP and Lib Dems to get things through that the SNP would never support (such as Trident), and it would mean looking to the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens to get things through that the Tories would never support (such as an increase in the top rate of tax).

But there has been a very strong indication that the SNP would not do anything to bring about an early election, which implies that Labour would not be 'punished' in a confidence vote for the renewal of Trident.  And if you think about it, that's perfectly rational - an early election would have absolutely no prospect of producing an anti-Trident majority in parliament, so nothing would be gained by bringing a Labour government down.  (And much might be lost, if the arithmetic after a new election was less favourable.)

That's not to say that the SNP are powerless to do anything about Trident in a hung parliament, though.  As I've speculated before, Labour may quickly be worn down by trying to survive day-to-day on a vote-by-vote basis, and the security of the formal deal they originally shunned might start to look very attractive after a few months - particularly if the opinion polls were suggesting that they would lose a snap election.  If the SNP's red lines for a deal hadn't shifted by then, Trident's days would be numbered.

Incidentally, I don't follow Duncan Hothersall on Twitter anymore (mainly because he seemed to block me for a while, which automatically deleted me from his followers' list), so I'd be curious to know what logical gymnastics he's been partaking in over the last few months to square his own views on Trident with continued support for Labour.  During the referendum, he repeatedly told us he wasn't interested in simply shifting the location of Britain's nuclear weapons, but instead wanted to abolish them altogether.  Well, we now have the SNP asking for a mandate to go to the UK parliament and abolish Trident altogether, while Labour are asking for a mandate to go to the UK parliament and spend billions of pounds renewing Trident.

Why is Duncan voting Labour?  Does he even know?

The Lib Dems' fondness for nuclear weapons makes them either stupid or illiberal

Courtesy of the BBC iplayer, I've finally caught up with Alex Salmond's appearance on Any Questions (appearance is obviously the wrong word for a radio show but I can never think of an appropriate equivalent).  There were quite a few fascinating moments - and one downright chilling moment, when Menzies Campbell explained that he has no philosophical stance at all on Britain's nuclear weapons, and that it's all about "utility" for him.  You'd think he was talking about a screwdriver or a pair of spectacles, but of course the sole function of nuclear weapons is to mass-slaughter millions of civilians - men, women and children without discrimination.  (The American bombing of Hiroshima, using a weapon of trivial destructive power compared to modern Trident warheads, burned countless children to death as they sat at school.)  Campbell sounded utterly furious when Salmond called him out on the grotesqueness of using the word "utility", but I suspect he was protesting too much - perhaps somewhere, deep down, he felt a twinge of shame at such a clear-sighted recognition of the Liberal Democrats' retreat into a moral vacuum.

Shortly afterwards, there was one of those broken record moments when the pro-WMD members of the panel kept pressing Salmond to say whether or not an independent Scotland would be able to sign the agreement stating that NATO is a nuclear weapons alliance, and Salmond kept responding with the SNP's careful formulation of words about how Scotland would simply be joining 25 of the 28 current NATO members in not possessing nuclear weapons.  Anna Soubry in particular seemed beside herself with excitement when she was able to point out that Salmond hadn't technically answered the question, which is true, but that's such a fatuous little triumph.  It shows just how warped the preoccupations of the London media have become that Jonathan Dimbleby allowed the panellists so much time to catch Salmond out on a point of pedantry, while giving a completely free pass to the gargantuan holes of logic in Campbell's own argument.  Apparently, without the ability to annihilate cities at the push of a button, the United Kingdom would be susceptible to nuclear blackmail, and that would be unacceptable.  Er, Ming, isn't that an argument for Finland to have nuclear weapons?  And Mexico?   And Ghana?   Not to mention Iran and North Korea?  What makes the UK so special that it's one of only five countries in the world permitted by international law to use the kind of "protection" that the Lib Dems regard as so utterly indispensable?  There are only really two options here - either nuclear deterrence doesn't work at all, or it only works on the basis of imperial domination of the world by a handful of 'superior' countries.  And by virtue of their dogmatic belief in nuclear deterrence, the Liberal Democrats are therefore either stupid or illiberal.

That said, it would have been easy enough for Salmond to get off his own hook.  For the life of me, I don't understand why the SNP have watered down the emphasis on conditionality that they adopted in the early days after the party's stance on NATO membership was reversed.  We were assured back then that, although an independent Scotland would be seeking to retain NATO membership, that wouldn't happen at any price.  The non-nuclear policy still had absolute primacy.  So why couldn't Salmond simply have answered the question by saying : "We would prefer to stay in NATO, but NATO must change.  NATO has adapted to the conditions of the 21st Century, but not quickly enough.  We want to work from within to make NATO fit for purpose in a post-nuclear era."

Lastly, it was interesting to hear the English audience laugh along with Salmond when he pointed out that it didn't really make sense for the Tories to paint a potential Miliband-Salmond alliance as Middle England's "worst nightmare" only months after begging, bribing and bullying Scotland to remain part of the UK.  Perhaps the audience were recognising a touch of cognitive dissonance within themselves - after all, we have opinion poll evidence suggesting that most people in England didn't want Scotland to become independent, and yet loathe the idea of the SNP holding a share of power at Westminster.  Somewhere along the line that just doesn't add up - if you want Scotland to "stay", you have to take the place as it actually is, and not as the clone of Buckinghamshire that you might prefer it to be.  Scotland votes SNP, not Tory.

*  *  *

I'm very disappointed to hear that the Scottish Government won't be supporting the designation of Flower of Scotland as the country's official national anthem.  The rationale seems to be that the song isn't everyone's cup of tea, but that misses the whole point.  The question should be whether you think Scotland needs an official anthem or not - and if you think that Scotland is a country, surely the answer can only be 'yes'.  For better or worse, Flower of Scotland is the only possible choice for that anthem because it's the only one that commands broad enough support.  The calls for Caledonia or 500 Miles to be chosen can't be taken seriously because no country in the world has an anthem of that sort.  (Although I was a great fan of the petition to replace God Save the Queen with Gold by Spandau Ballet.)

A more serious alternative might be Both Sides The Tweed, which although a nationalist song is kind of the antithesis of Flower of Scotland.  Mind you, it's one of those songs that have to be explained to people, because superficially the lyrics of the chorus make it sound like a happy-clappy Better Together anthem that Dan Snow and Ross Kemp would thoroughly approve of!

No, Andrew Neil, this "new" poll does not show that Scots are pro-Trident

I didn't see it, but Mick Pork has mentioned on the previous thread that Andrew Neil has been abusing his position as a BBC host to crow about a poll that purports to show that Scots want Trident to stay here.  As Neil always takes such sadistic pleasure in taking apart interviewees who don't have a proper understanding of the numbers (and somehow got away with it in a recent interview with Douglas Alexander even though he'd made a catastrophic schoolboy slip-up in his own sums), I wouldn't mind seeing someone do the same to him in respect of this poll.  This is what he appears not to have taken account of -

1) It actually shows that the Scottish public do not want Britain to have nuclear weapons at all, by a margin of 46% to 37%.  (That makes it uncannily similar to an Ashcroft poll which was also brazenly misreported as showing that Scots were pro-Trident.)  It's impossible to argue that the public want Trident to stay when they do not think it should even exist.

2) The question that has generated such excitement among the nuclear weapon loving Brit Nats (Johann Lamont must be so proud) implicitly presupposes that Westminster will be retaining the inhuman weapons against our wishes, and merely poses a practical query about what should happen to them after independence.

3) This is not a full-scale Scottish poll at all, but a small subsample of a Britain-wide poll.  It's therefore of limited validity.  Even if it had been a full-scale poll, the tiny 4% lead for keeping Trident on the Clyde after independence would have been within the standard margin of error.  As it is, the margin of error for a small subsample is incalculable, and it's therefore entirely conceivable that the same question posed to a full-scale, properly weighted Scottish sample would produce the opposite result.

Incidentally, the Herald's reporting of it as a "new poll" is also somewhat misleading - it may have only just been released, but the fieldwork for it concluded last October!

Sagacity on Saturday : A Non-Sagacity Special

"A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us."

Said by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I'm not making this up - she had honestly convinced herself the world was LESS dangerous as a result of the existence of weapons capable of wiping out most of the human race within a matter of minutes.

Wisdom on Wednesday : No-one forced the MoD to put all their eggs in one basket

"The Americans were much more sensible. When they set up house in the Holy Loch they brought most of their own infrastructure with them in the shape of a moored tender, a decision which had more to do with common sense than any cent-pinching in Washington. At the time of the deployment in the 1960s the Americans were far from certain that their British hosts would always be onside, a sensible precaution since it seemed to them that an incoming Labour government would adopt a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament."

Trevor Royle, writing in the Sunday Herald in 1999, pointing out that it would have been perfectly possible for the London government to decide to base nuclear weapons in Scotland while still having contingency planning for the obvious possibility of a democratic withdrawal of consent for their presence.

UK government keeping it unreal

From the BBC yesterday -

"The new Scottish Secretary reckoned David Cameron should not take part in TV debates about the 2014 referendum with Alex Salmond as it would allow the SNP to present "a choice between a vision of Scottish social democracy and English Conservatism"."

You mean the SNP would rather have a debate that presents the choice faced by the electorate in its authentic form? The scoundrels! You tell 'em, Alistair - it's much more fun if we have a TV debate that pretends a No vote will somehow result in Alistair Darling replacing Cameron as UK Prime Minister, and will magically usher in a golden era of 'British social democracy' (now almost a contradiction in terms) for the first time since the 1970s.

"Alistair Carmichael said: "As prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron has an important part in Scotland's public life, but he's not a Scot.""

Er, yes, and that's kind of what we're deciding in this referendum, isn't it? Whether someone who does not represent a Scottish constituency, and who wouldn't get elected to government in Scotland in a million, gazillion years, should be allowed to continue playing an "important part in Scotland's public life"? Or to put it more bluntly, whether Cammo should be able to continue lording it over Scotland without a democratic mandate?

As Cammo's right (and the right of his Tory and Tory-lite successors) to rule Scotland is on the ballot paper in this referendum, shouldn't he be the one defending that system? Particularly, you know, as he once muttered something about "fighting with every fibre of his being" to keep Scotland firmly within Tory Britain? I'm beginning to have some doubts about just how many fibres were in his being in the first place...

* * *

And from Channel 4 News, a timely reminder that Cameron and his successors are not the only external menace that will retain a presence in Scotland in the event of a No vote -

"The Trident missile, which is the principle nuclear weapon that Great Britain has, has some safety issues that were revealed in a report to Congress more than twenty years ago...the warheads are not on top of the missile as they traditionally are. They surround the third stage rocket engine, and that rocket engine has a propellent, a fuel, that explodes very easily if it's dropped. So I hope in Scotland that they're very careful when they're loading and unloading the missiles."

Oh great. I live just thirty miles from Faslane. Given that each Trident missile carries several warheads, and given that each warhead is about eight times more powerful than the bomb that obliterated the city of Hiroshima and indiscriminately snuffed out the lives of tens of thousands of civilians (including countless children), I suddenly don't feel particularly safe. Let's crack on with winning over those undecided voters, if only in pursuance of that most basic of Tory principles - the right to protect our own homes from external threats.

The return of the Daily Duncan : the nuclear question that Hothersall couldn't answer

After controversial Labour activist Duncan Hothersall blocked me on Twitter a few weeks ago, I thought the days of being able to repost my exchanges with him were well and truly over. But I'm delighted to say that your deadbeat dooraway Daily Duncan is making an unexpected comeback - albeit possibly for one day only. Enjoy it while it lasts.

For what seemed like the seventeen billionth time, Duncan was trying to explain to a sceptical audience why he, as an avowed opponent of nuclear weapons, is voting against independence and thus passing up a golden chance to actually achieve nuclear disarmament. His excuse was that the moving of weapons is not disarmament. The following exchange starts with me pointing out to him that in practice, independence could bring about disarmament throughout the whole UK, and indeed might well be the only realistic method by which that goal can be achieved.

See if you can spot the bit where he gets so tied up in knots with his knee-jerk attack lines that he comes very close to implying that a Labour government in London might yet annex Faslane, and that this makes them superior to the Tories who have set their face against the idea.

Duncan Hothersall ‏: Only on Twitter could the expression of my vocal opposition to my party's policy be criticised as me protecting a "gravy train". :-(

Me : But what are you actually going to do about that opposition, Duncan? Sit on a prayer-mat for the rest of your natural life?

Duncan Hothersall : No. I'll be arguing for my convictions. What else would you suggest?

Me : Well, for starters taking the one step that might actually result in British nuclear disarmament - independence.

Duncan Hothersall ‏: I don't believe it would. As I have set out at some length.

(At this point he directs me to a blogpost claiming that independence would not mean the end of Trident, and that the most likely outcome would be the lease of Faslane to the UK "for as long as it was required".)

Me : What does "lease" mean? I presume you're not suggesting UK sovereign control, as that's already been rejected by Cameron?

Duncan Hothersall : Oddly, I meant "lease" as in the traditional meaning of the word "lease". Let me know if any of the other words confuse you.

Me : Duncan, this is a very simple question. Does "lease" in the context you used it mean UK sovereign control? Yes or no?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: Lease means a contracted arrangement for use of a site for a period of time under an agreed set of conditions. You know, lease.

Me : Like the 99-year British lease of the Hong Kong New Territories? You know, UK sovereign control? Is that what you mean?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: The terms of the lease would be a matter for the lessee and the lessor. I'm not an expert on leases.

Me : But surely you have an opinion? Should that lease give rUK sovereign control over Faslane, or not?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: My opinion? In my opinion Faslane should be shut down! I'm talking there about what is most likely to happen, not what I want!

Me : Yes, so tell us what you think is most likely to happen in the event of independence - UK sovereign control of Faslane, or not?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: I don't know, James. I think a lease is the most likely outcome, I have no view on its likely terms.

Me : But this is the hypothetical you're basing your whole argument on. Could a lease without sovereign control be credible?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: No, it isn't, and the terms aren't critical.

Me : They are. Cameron has ruled out sovereign control. Harvey says lease without sovereign control couldn't work. Other options?

Duncan Hothersall : So one ex minister is enough to rule something out for you? Honestly.

Me ‏: In your view, is it credible for the UK to base its entire nuclear weapons system on the sovereign territory of another state?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: In my view it's not credible for the UK to have a nuclear weapons system.

Me : Your entire argument rests on you thinking it is credible for UK to base its nukes on Scottish-controlled territory. Do you?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: No, my entire argument does not rest on that. Perhaps you should re-read.

Me : You're unwilling to defend the "lease" argument, then. So if Trident leaves Scotland, where would/could it go?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: I'm not unwilling to defend it. I'm unable to agree with your attempt to undermine it.

Duncan Hothersall ‏: Feel free to comment on the blog if you want to ask a series of questions.

Me ‏: Duncan, this is very simple. Your campaign has put sovereign control off the table. A lease must mean Scottish control - yes?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: Lazy attempt to equate Cameron with No campaign. Check.

Me : No, not just Cameron! Darling as well. You agree with Alistair Darling, surely?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: When did Darling rule out a lease under specific terms?

Me : Darling ruled out UK sovereign control of Faslane. Correct?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: Did he rule out a lease? How long do you want to do this? I'm getting pretty tired of it.

Me : About as long as it takes you to answer a simple question, Duncan. He ruled out UK sovereign control. Do you agree?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: I've been entirely clear. No-one's ruled out a lease. The terms of a lease are undefined. Nothing's off the table.

Me : That is simply not true. Darling, just like Cameron, has taken rUK sovereign control of Faslane off the table. Correct?

Duncan Hothersall ‏: The table hasn't even been built. Nobody is making commitments as to what might happen if there's a Yes vote.

Me : That is a straightforward denial of reality. The leaders of your campaign have excluded the possibility of UK sovereign control.

What I found difficult to understand was why Duncan even bothered trying to dodge the key question in such excruciatingly obvious fashion. There's no doubt - no doubt whatever - that every part of the No campaign has categorically ruled out the possibility of UK sovereign control of Faslane after independence. Duncan therefore has nowhere else to go with his "lease" wheeze other than an arrangement that respects Scottish sovereignty - so why on earth didn't he just say "yes, of course Scotland would retain sovereignty over Faslane, and here are the reasons why such an agreement would work"? Could it be that he just can't conceive of any plausible way of making that case, and thus has to fudge the issue by implying there is some kind of unspecified middle way available that transcends the issue of sovereignty - you know, in much the same way that women can be half-pregnant?

The reality is that UK sovereign control of Faslane isn't a runner because Cameron and Darling have ruled it out, and a lease that falls short of sovereign control isn't a runner because it isn't credible for a nuclear weapons system to be based on the sovereign territory of an anti-nuclear weapons state (which is what Scotland would be, unless of course pro-nuclear Labour were in power at Holyrood - Duncan must be so proud). In other words, Trident would have to leave Scotland after independence, and as there's no alternative base for it south of the border, that could very well lead to the UK relinquishing its nuclear capability altogether - precisely the outcome Duncan is supposed to want. He wills the end, but he also wills the means never to come about.

It's very, very hard to escape the conclusion that Duncan's starting-point is that independence is a Bad Thing, and he then works out how all of his other political beliefs can be reconciled with that starting-point, no matter what contortions of logic (or even of the laws of physics) are required to do so.

YouGov poll : Scotland says a resounding no to renewing Trident

Here's another significant blow for journalists who like to peddle the fiction that Scottish public opinion on key issues is near-enough indistinguishable from public opinion in the rest of the UK. YouGov's latest poll on the future of Britain's "minimum nuclear deterrent" (translation : a weapons system that, if used, would extinguish the lives of hundreds of millions of innocent civilians within minutes) shows that Scotland is the only part of the UK where outright abolition is the most popular of the three basic options. Support for that option is also a full fourteen points higher in Scotland than it is across Britain as a whole.

GREAT BRITAIN :

The UK should order four new submarines to maintain its nuclear weapons system - 32%
The UK should try to find a cheaper system for keeping nuclear weapons - 34%
The UK should give up nuclear weapons altogether - 20%

SCOTLAND :

The UK should order four new submarines to maintain its nuclear weapons system - 25%
The UK should try to find a cheaper system for keeping nuclear weapons - 31%
The UK should give up nuclear weapons altogether - 34%

One small consolation for the above-mentioned journalists, though - this doesn't necessarily prove that Scots hold more progressive views in general. It may have just been the effect of living with these inhuman weapons on our doorstep for the last few decades that has brought us to our senses a little quicker than others. Although, to be fair, respondents in both Scotland and the rest of the UK seem thoroughly unconvinced by the argument that the retention of nuclear weapons somehow makes us safer, as opposed to putting us at far greater risk of being the target of a nuclear attack ourselves.

Thinking about nuclear weapons, please say how persuasive, if at all, you find the following statements...

Having nuclear weapons makes the world more dangerous, not less, because we encourage other countries to get them by having them ourselves.

GREAT BRITAIN :

Persuasive 61%
Not Persuasive 25%

SCOTLAND :

Persuasive 62%
Not Persuasive 30%

But unsurprisingly, the marked difference between Scottish and British opinion returns with a vengeance when we move on to the true rationale for retaining Trident - the need for a British national status symbol. (If we simply had to have one of those, couldn't we have done humanity a favour by holding onto Concorde instead?)

If the United Kingdom abandoned its nuclear weapons, then it could be seen as a less important country in the world.

GREAT BRITAIN :

Persuasive 46%
Not Persuasive 38%

SCOTLAND :

Persuasive 36%
Not Persuasive 51%

The United Kingdom doesn't need its own nuclear weapons to have influence because some other countries have a lot of influence without having their own nuclear weapons.

GREAT BRITAIN :

Persuasive 41%
Not Persuasive 42%

SCOTLAND :

Persuasive 54%
Not Persuasive 31%

UK government proposes military occupation of an independent Scotland. Will anti-nuclear No campaigners speak out against this?

One of the best teachers I ever had was a history teacher at Anniesland College. When he was explaining for us the significance of the West Lothian by-election in 1962 to the fortunes of the SNP, he mentioned that he had been a canvasser in that contest, but had only realised many decades later that he'd been a participant in something of a landmark election. He refused to tell us which party he'd campaigned for, from which I guessed that it probably wasn't the Nationalists. But he did add, when we were discussing what I presumed to be highly implausible 'what if?' scenarios, that he would be prepared to take up arms to defend Scottish independence if necessary, regardless of whether he had voted for it himself.

I hope nobody is thinking of taking up arms tonight, but I suspect there will be a great many potential No voters looking at the front cover of The Guardian, and thinking to themselves "I might be against independence in principle, but up with this I will not put". If you haven't seen the story, it's a suggestion from MoD sources that if Scotland votes for independence (which among other things will be a vote for the removal of nuclear weapons from our shores), the UK government will simply confiscate the part of Scotland which currently hosts nuclear weapons and declare it UK sovereign territory - in precisely the same way that 3% of Cypriot territory was stolen upon independence in 1960 for military convenience, and indefensibly remains under British sovereign control to this very day. Does the word 'arrogance' cover that type of mindset? Does 'cynical' cover it? If all else fails, 'imperial' and 'colonial' will certainly fit the bill, so unless this threat is explicitly withdrawn, let's never again see any smirking when the suggestion is made that London governance over Scotland is quasi-colonial in nature.

I'm sorry, but I'm not campaigning for independence for a country called 'Scotland minus Faslane'. I will not be sanguine about a foreign government occupying a part of our territory, just so that it can retain the ability to inflict a holocaust on foreign peoples that would make what Hitler did to the Jews look like a tea party. Are these really the values of our opponents? That the ability to mass murder hundreds of millions of civilians at the press of a button is so important as a national status symbol that even democracy must be subverted to that end? Can the likes of Kezia Dugdale and Duncan Hothersall look at themselves in the mirror and still support the No campaign when this is what it stands for?

Some of you will have seen the nine 'Think Independence' posters that I put together, and that Tris very kindly posted on Munguin's Republic the other day. What you don't know is that there was a tenth that Tris decided not to use. It showed a real image from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, with a human body lying in the rubble, burned beyond all possible recognition and with limbs missing. The text read "NUCLEAR WEAPONS : COMPULSORY IN SCOTLAND AS PART OF THE UK. THINK INDEPENDENCE". I deliberately set out to shock, because I felt that when people euphemistically use terms like 'minimum nuclear deterrent', they lose sight of the indescribable evil that they're actually talking about. However, Tris felt that there was a danger of it backfiring because of the graphic nature of the image, and on reflection I was inclined to agree with him. But I'm so outraged at what I've just read that I'm severely tempted to go ahead and post it right here and now - and without shame or apology.

Want to know how to help the world take a small step towards averting nuclear apocalypse?

If so, click HERE to read my 1000-word potted guide over at the International Business Times. If you're in a rush, the even shorter version is 'Vote Yes in September 2014'.

House of Commons report confirms that Scottish independence would be a force for good in the world - and that Duncan Hothersall is wrong, again

It's rare that a report by Westminster's Foreign Affairs Committee paints such an inspiring picture of the benefits that independence would bring not just to Scotland, but to the wider world as well. Here are just a few of the highlights -

1. The UK might lose its veto-wielding power in the UN Security Council.

This of course would be a GOOD THING. Britain's special perks at the UN are relics of imperialism that ought to have been stripped away decades ago. Countries in the developing world are rightly furious that a nation on the fringes of Europe, with less than 1% of the global population, has the permanent, in-built power to protect its own selfish interests by vetoing resolutions that would otherwise have the full force of international law.

2. The UK might not retain its nuclear weapons, because of the difficulty of moving them from Scotland.

This of course would be a GOOD THING. The fewer countries in the world that have weapons capable of wiping out millions of people within seconds, the less chance there is of human civilisation coming to an end in the near future. On the whole, I'm rather in favour of human civilisation.

This also confirms that Duncan Hothersall is wrong in his claims that the unilateralism of independence supporters is a sham, and that we'd simply be voting to move the weapons elsewhere rather than eliminate them. In fact, if the Commons report is correct, the only meaningful chance any UK citizens will have to eliminate nuclear weapons will be by voting for Scottish independence.

3. Confusingly at variance with highlight no 2, Scotland might be "forced" to continue hosting nuclear weapons for decades if we want the UK's support for our applications to join international organisations.

This is of course a GOOD THING, or at least it is if you read between the lines and spot the implicit recognition that the Trident issue is Scotland's bargaining chip from heaven, which can potentially be used to counter London's immature intransigence on a whole range of other issues as well.

4. A truly independent Scottish foreign policy is a misnomer, because in practice we'd be forced to go along with whatever the UK wanted.

Well, this would probably be a bad thing on the whole, but I can only assume that the committee itself regards it as a GOOD THING. After all, it would mean following in the finest traditions of British foreign policy, which is to do whatever the Americans instruct us to do.

* * *

On a vaguely related theme, this poll from YouGov caught my eye, because it was conducted across seven different European countries...

How serious a threat do you think North Korea poses to your country?

BRITISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 15%
Minor threat/Not a threat 74%

GERMAN VOTERS:

Serious threat 19%
Minor threat/Not a threat 68%

FRENCH VOTERS:

Serious threat 26%
Minor threat/Not a threat 62%

DANISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 4%
Minor threat/Not a threat 90%

SWEDISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 3%
Minor threat/Not a threat 90%

FINNISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 3%
Minor threat/Not a threat 90%

NORWEGIAN VOTERS:

Serious threat 6%
Minor threat/Not a threat 85%

So, unsurprisingly, the majority in all seven countries are wise enough to realise that David Cameron's claims that Europe is under threat from North Korea are a load of old twaddle. But what I find particularly interesting is that the populations of the four small independent nations (none of which have an 'independent nuclear deterrent', and two of which are not even NATO members) feel under considerably LESS threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of Kim Jong-un than the populations of the three much larger countries (two of which do have an 'independent nuclear deterrent').

Shurely shome mishtake, David?

* * *

I have it on reasonably good authority that a full-scale YouGov poll on referendum voting intentions is on its way. It will be the first such poll by the company this year, and therefore also the first YouGov poll to use - after a fashion - the finalised, Electoral Commission-approved question. I say "after a fashion" because Kellner's mob have by all accounts persisted with their indefensible practice of using a biased preamble to 'explain' the question to their respondents, who they apparently think are too stupid to understand the meaning of the words "Should Scotland be an independent country?".

Rest assured that I have my customary "YouGov credibility in tatters" headline ready to go when the moment arrives.

Now that the daffodils are back, it's time to vote for a blog that is fighting for the things that really matter

My fellow citizens, these are uniquely dangerous times that we live in.

Lord Fraser wants to call in the RAF to bomb Glasgow Airport. The Treasury wants to rip out the soul of this nation by taking away our banknotes. Richard Baker still wants to be a government minister.

These are just three of the unpredictable and growing menaces that threaten our survival.

As the great lady once said, this is no time to go wobbly.

Scotland MUST retain its independent blogging deterrent.

Conventional forces such as Better Nation and A Burdz Eye View are all very well, but what this country really needs is a blogging weapons system that can annihilate whole cities with its mind-numbingly detailed coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

If so...

Vote liberty.

Vote oxygen.

Vote for a blog that is tough on Tavish, and tough on the causes of Tavish.

Vote Scot Goes Pop in the WoS favourite blog poll.

Thankyou. May God bless you, and may God bless the United Yetts o' Muckhart.

(DISCLAIMER: Just like Trident, voting for this deterrent is no guarantee that it will actually work. On the plus side, this one won't cost you £25 billion.)

The "international socialist movement" and its curious obsession with boundaries

Duncan Hothersall, leading Twitter propagandist for what he fondly describes as "the international labour movement" (better known to us as the UK Labour Party, an esteemed former member party of the Socialist International), seems unhappy that one or two people have pointed out that there are growing doubts over whether the leading anti-independence donor was actually born in Scotland -

"SNP comms officer @erikgeddes just RTd @WingsScotland querying where a #BetterTogether supporter was BORN. Civic nationalism, gotta love it."

Now I must say I'm confused by this. We know for a fact that anti-independence campaigners think that two things are vitally important in determining whether or not people should have a voice in this referendum -

1) Where people live. We know this because they have criticised Alan Cumming and Brian Cox for speaking out in support of independence in spite of not currently being Scottish residents (apparently not spotting the irony that they defend to the death the right of David Cameron and Ed Miliband to speak out against independence).

2) Whether people come from Scotland originally. We know this because Labour commentators like Alastair Campbell have moaned endlessly about the SNP's supposed marginalisation of Scots living in England.

It's an established fact that Ian Taylor, the No campaign's leading benefactor, is not a resident of Scotland and will consequently not have a vote in the referendum. By a process of elimination, therefore, the justification for the donation must lie with point 2 - Mr Taylor's Scottish connections. If we've been misled about the extent of those connections, then according to the No campaign's own stated principles that must be a matter of some significance.

At this stage, let me also present to you Exhibit Y. Without question the all-time highlight of the blogging career of Ms Kezia Dugdale MSP (one of Duncan's colleagues in the "global socialist crusade") was her triumphant announcement in 2009 that there had been two maternity hospitals in the Glasgow North-east constituency in 1973, meaning that the mother of SNP by-election candidate David Kerr could have given birth within the constituency boundaries if she'd damn well had a mind to do so. In spite of the fact that the Kerr family home was in the constituency, Kezia regarded Labour's Willie Bain as the only authentically local candidate because his mother had patriotically given birth to him in Stobhill. Disgracefully, Mr. Kerr had been born in Govan, before being driven back to the constituency a few days later to commence his sham life as a local baby.

"International socialists", eh? You gotta love 'em.

* * *

Duncan's other little obsession over the last 24 hours has been with the idea that the SNP's anti-Trident stance amounts merely to 'washing their hands' of nuclear disarmament, because only by staying in the UK can we actually vote to abolish - rather than move - Trident. The first point to make here is that the fact that the UK is one of only nine countries where it's theoretically possible to vote to scrap existing nuclear weapons (actually, make that seven - it would be a touch hard to 'vote against' anything in China or North Korea!) is surely a terrible indictment of the country that Duncan wants to remain part of, rather than a badge of honour. We regard it as a good thing that we can no longer vote to scrap capital punishment, don't we?

The second point is that, of course, there's considerable doubt over whether the UK could maintain a nuclear weapons system in its current form without access to the Faslane base. So whether Duncan likes it or not, it could well be that a vote for Scottish independence is the only truly effective way in which any UK citizens can vote for nuclear disarmament.

The third point is that the logic of Duncan's position is that anti-nuclear activists in Switzerland should presumably be seeking political union with France as a matter of some urgency. That would be a distinctly peculiar way to demonstrate their disapproval of France's status as a nuclear weapons power, but it takes all sorts I suppose.

And the fourth and final point is this - if one of the virtues of being part of the UK is that anti-nuclear campaigners like Duncan can vote for the scrapping of Trident, why has he consistently passed up the opportunity to do so? Why did he repeatedly vote for a pro-nuclear government between 1997 and 2010, rather than supporting a party that actually votes against Trident at Westminister - like, for example, the SNP?