What lies ahead?
August 15, 2007
Gordon Brown finally became Prime Minister in June and, having told the whole world a year ago that he supported Trident replacement, it is perhaps not surprising that he has so far made no pronouncements on the future of Britain’s nuclear weapons.
Earlier this year, the government forced a vote on the replacement of the submarines designed for launching Trident missiles. It survived a rebellion of 100 Labour MPs, only getting parliamentary approval for the decision with the help of Tory support. The argument against replacement is firstly a straight moral one: there can be no justification for holding, threatening to use, or firing nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapon is an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction that kills and maims civilian populations. The arguments used in the parliamentary debate included this moral one, as well as emphasising the huge cost (more than £76 billion). For those MPs representing the shipyard or naval cities the issue of potential job loss remains significant. Read more
Housing
August 15, 2007
During the Deputy Leadership Campaign, the issue of housing came to the fore, thanks to questions from party members, and the readiness of Jon Cruddas to take the issue up. John McDonnell also quite correctly, made a big pitch about housing in his leadership campaign.
It seems that at last the higher echelons of the Parliamentary Labour Party have recognised that the crisis of the lack of council housing and other forms of social housing is very damaging to Labour supporters and to our prospects for the future. Read more
