The Intelligence2 Debate

The motion: Britain Doesn’t Need Trident

Harrowing stuff. Helena Kennedy QC began by invoking the memory of Hiroshima. ‘Peeling skin, melting eyeballs. People on pavements vomiting and waiting for death.’ Though she made the pacifist argument Lady Kennedy wasn’t suggesting that to scrap Trident was ‘some wild left-wing peacenik plan’. She cited conservative figures like Simon Jenkins and Lord Bramall, a former defence chief of staff, who both oppose renewing the nuclear deterrent.

The opposition was led by Sir Michael Quinlan, former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence. The lovable mandarin elaborated his urbane arguments in a rapid, fluting delivery. The £20 billion cost of replacing Trident is cheap compared with what the French are paying, he said. We build the subs and missiles ourselves. We import the warheads from America. The French version is entirely homemade and costs them four times as much. Applying himself to the unilateralist argument he made the unanswerable point that ‘eliminating nuclear weapons does not eliminate the problem of nuclear weapons’.