I know Lewis Page used to work for the Gray Funnel Line, and even I once upon a time wore a green and brown suit and carried a rifle for Her Majesty - if only on a part time basis - but there is an old military principle of 'Honour the threat'.
I have to ask myself what threat are we honouring by keeping nuclear weapons ? I find it difficult to think of any realistic nuclear threat against the UK in the present day. It was different during the cold war - British ports, airfields and other installations were a vital part of NATO basing and reinforcement and therefore were justifiable targets to the Warsaw Pact forces, but we are no longer waiting for the Group of Soviet Forces (Germany) to come charging through the Fulda and Weser gaps.
I agree with both Lewis Page and Robert McNamara that, in terms of bang for buck, nuclear weapons are the cheapest way around of killing people in large numbers - but you need large numbers of people to kill before the investment has a potential pay back. And killing people in this sort of quantity has gone out of fashion, thank God ! Nowadays we get upset if two or three squaddies get blown away in Afghanistan.
Leaving aside the question of how fighting a war in Afghanistan is doing anything to improve our security, or further British interests, the sorts of war we are gearing up for today seem to be rather infantry heavy and the Government is reducing our establishment of infantry with a gusto. I know infantry are relatively expensive - they have to be paid on a regular basis and training them and keeping them trained is expensive, but they do at least get used !
No, I am a long way short of agreeing that Britain gains anything useful from having a nuclear deterrent. Still, I do agree with Lewis Page on the subject of carriers and catapults !
Chris Cosgrove