Lib Dems face challenge to show Trident review is being taken seriously

The Trident Alternatives Review hasn’t even been published and already the Conservatives are attacking any proposals the Liberal Democrats might have cooked up to water down the nuclear deterrent. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told the morning lobby briefing that the Prime Minister has ‘seen no evidence that there is a way of providing an alternative to a like-for-like replacement’ of Trident, while in his Daily Mail article today, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond says ‘there is no alternative to Trident that provides the same level of protection and ability to deter an aggressor’.

So the challenge for the Liberal Democrats is to present this review, which has been lead by Danny Alexander, as a worthwhile and responsible exercise, rather than simply something their Coalition partners promised that would keep them busy without having any impact on official policy at all.