Thursday, November 01, 2007

Clegg attacks Huhne's unilateral nuclear armament plans?

Amusing Lib Dem coverage this morning, the Independent notes that Huhne is making a coded attack on Clegg about being a secret Tory, they also note that Huhne wants to drop the Lib Dem policy on extending the life of Trident and only maintain a minium deterrent, which is the opposite to Clegg.

This is where it gets funny though (at least in my warped little head), Clegg has written a piece for Lib Dem Voice which is a "coded attack" on Huhne's "minium nuclear deterrent" saying,
"I am dismayed by suggestions we should pre-empt the 2010 talks on the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty by planning to build a new, “smaller” nuclear weapons system. Building a new warhead would almost certainly be illegal under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty; a treaty I would never permit Britain to breach.... I would never permit Britain to destabilise the international order by adopting more aggressive nuclear weapons."
Got that? Cleeg wants to keep Trident, Huhne wants to get rid of it but perhaps have something smaller. Clegg says that Huhne wants a unilateral increase in nuclear weapons and that it will destablise the planet.

I don't know about you, but I'm confused now. Both scenarios result in Britain maintaining a nuclear deterrent, and yet each is trying to claim that he is in favour of disarmament as an end game and the other is somehow more belliscose. Bless!

2 comments:

Colin Moore said...

Do the Lib Dems not understand the meaning of minimum?

If we have four ballistic subs yet only one of these is capable of being on patrol at anyone time is this not the meaning of minimum?

If we accept this basic premise, Huhne's policy collapses.

As for Clegg's "I would never permit Britain to...[adopt] more aggressive nuclear weapons." Does he not understand that all nuclear weapons are pretty much equally agressive, be it a suitcase bomb or an ICBM they are all equally destructive in their own right.

nought.point.zero said...

It's the lib dems. They need *something* to argue about or else they might notice that simply... noone really cares about them.