A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.
For some reason my tour of CLPs to debate Trident didn't end with the Commons vote on the issue.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:39 pm
Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Supporter of Europe, NATO/nuclear deterrence, Israel, electoral reform. Guardian reader. Dad. Oxford resident. Unite union member. Employment history as a Labour Party Organiser, Local Government Political Assistant, Director at a Public Affairs company. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
11 Comments:
Debating Trident, how noble.
What were you debating? Whether you would nuke a million women and children or which terrorist atrocity would give you the dubious moral right to deploy "tactical" nuclear weapons in retaliation.
You make me sick. So does Hazel "nuts" Blairs.
12:29 am, May 07, 2007
Can anyone who has seen this Trident apologist in action - apart from the LA himself - please provide a review?
Is Luke on the bill to make the main acts look good? Give them something to riff off?
Or is it - as he seems to think - "HIS" tour with CND, McDonnell, Wolfgang etc HIS warm up acts.
4:25 pm, May 07, 2007
punkscience doesn't seem to have seen the results. Since 1950 number of civilians killed by nuclear weapons - nil, number killed by 'conventional' weapons (including machetes and other such low tech nasties) millions. Amount of peace assured by mutually assured destruction - lots, amount secured by other means - not enough...
5:24 pm, May 07, 2007
If peace was assured by mutually assured destruction, it's a wonder that so many have been killed by 'conventional weapons' since 1950.
I hope Luke's arguments are a bit less rubbish than that!
5:37 pm, May 07, 2007
"Since 1950 number of civilians killed by nuclear weapons - nil,"
As a point of information, thousands have died because of the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq alone.
I know that "thousands" in the Iraqi context doesn't seem very much given the hundreds of thousands slaughtered by the West through sanctions, invasion and occupation but I thought that it's worth flagging up anyway.
5:48 pm, May 07, 2007
Duncan – parochial of me I concede but not many civilian deaths in Western Europe where it is inconceivable that there wouldn't have been a massive and bloody East vs. West conflict after WWII had not these weapons existed. Contrast the number of civilian deaths in our continent before 1950 with ditto afterwards.
Owen may be right about "depleted uranium weapons in Iraq" but Trident isn't a depleted uranium weapon.
And, btw, saying that Trident is no good against terrorists and is therefore not needed is about as useful as saying that chemotherapy is no good against measles and therefore not needed.
It's odd that people who are even more critical than I am about the US's foreign policy seem quite happy to leave Europe sheltering under America's nuclear umbrella against who knows what threats in the future...
6:34 pm, May 07, 2007
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8:06 pm, May 07, 2007
Punkscience, the UK doesn't have any "tactical" nuclear weapons. We disarmed the last of them unilaterally as part of Labour's Strategic Defence Review. Whilst this was in itself a good move, it also disproved CND's theory that unilateral disarmament would trigger disarmament by other nations, as none of them took any notice.
8:07 pm, May 07, 2007
Hughes views - many of the wars you refer to were proxy conflicts of the sort of East-West conflagration you refer to. And nuclear powers have been involved in most of those conflicts. Your logic is that deterrence only works in the instance of mutually assured destruction - which, from almost any angle, is an argument for proliferation.
Renewing Trident would not increase the independence of our foreign policy.
9:51 pm, May 07, 2007
Is there still a CLP left in Brentwood & Onger?
12:45 pm, May 08, 2007
Typical Owen - full of lies. Tell me, why didn't you mention the millions upon millions killed by Saddam?
7:43 pm, May 09, 2007
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