Trident Renewal
Debate between Bob Stewart and Angus Brendan MacNeil(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Bob Stewart
But the hon. Gentleman misses the point. Scotland would be a member of the nuclear planning group, even though it did not have nuclear weapons on its soil. If the SNP were to rule Scotland, would it be a member of the NPG or not? Everyone else is!
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman tempts me on the rule of Scotland, but my final word on this is that we will fulfil our full NATO obligations as a non-nuclear member of NATO. About 90% of its members have no difficulty with that. My goodness, there is all this excitement about Norway and Denmark as well as Scotland—Members should get over all this!
I listened intently to the speech by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock). She mentioned the 1980s—a time I clearly remember as a teenager, when nuclear annihilation was seriously talked about and people did seem to comprehend the awful, frightening and terrifying possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. Over time, people have perhaps become more blasé and this has crept into our discourse, so there is a not as much understanding of the insanity of nuclear weapons as there used to be. That may be to protect our own sanity personally from day to day, because if we were to comprehend it, it would blight our lives. We have a feeling of powerlessness about it, so why worry about it day to day—if it is going to happen, it is going to happen. I say as a crofter from the highlands, however, that this is akin to the happy lambs who play in a meadow unaware of the autumn slaughter—the mass slaughter—to come.
The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford reminded us of the wisdom and courage of Colonel Petrov, who had the data and information available to his senses from the best technology available at that time—that the west had fired five nuclear weapons at the USSR. What would have happened if he had acted in the way he was meant to act or in the way we were told he would act, or if he had acted logically on the basis of MAD—mutually assured destruction? If my memory serves me correctly, this comes from the theories of John Nash, the Nobel prize winner in economics. If Colonel Petrov had responded in that way, I would not have seen my 16th birthday. I have thus had 28 bonus years as a result.
If Colonel Petrov is still alive, I say that if ever there were a man deserving of the Nobel peace prize, it is certainly he. We were saved by our alleged enemies—perhaps by their humanity. We were saved again by a Soviet submarine commander during the Bay of Pigs incidents in Cuba in the early 1960s. The actions of those two men disproved the MAD theories, which were the foundation of the nuclear club to which the UK had itself belonged. They behaved in a way in a way that was outside MAD. They did not do mutually assured destruction, although they thought they would be destroyed themselves.
As the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford said, our luck will eventually run out. Nuclear weapons have been in the hands of human beings for only 70 years. Given the two near misses that I have cited—and there have been more—I invite Members to engage in a thought experiment. Had nuclear weapons existed since Roman times, how much would history have progressed before nuclear annihilation? If we extend our 70 years to 140, or 210, or 300, how long will it be before it all goes wrong and our luck runs out? If our luck does run out, it will run out big style. I have to say, with respect to my friends in the Green party, that it is not gradual global warming that should be worrying us, but immediate global frying and the destruction of all creation—a sin like no other, which may result from omission or commission.
There will be more years of this possibility if mankind continues to possess nuclear weapons. The statistical chance of their use keeps increasing. If we had had them in Roman times, many events in history might not have happened. The world could have ended in 300 AD. If nuclear weapons had fallen into the hands of a Hitler, a Genghis Khan or even Jihadi John, or any similar despot or madman, he would have used them and the planet would have been destroyed. MAD—mutually assured destruction—could well have been framed for such people.
Nuclear weapons seem, bizarrely, to be subject to the law of triviality, which was summed up well by C. Northcote Parkinson in his 1959 book, “Parkinson’s Law, or the Pursuit of Progress”. If you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall quote from it. Parkinson said:
“The Law of Triviality...briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.”
I would add “or to the danger of the position.” I believe that the £100 billion cost of the renewal of Trident will go through on an extremely small nod. Indeed, the issue is so trivial that Labour in Scotland has described tonight’s vote as meaningless, and its newly elected leader has described his party’s former policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament as a “flirtation with surrealism”. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), Labour has indeed moved, and that is why the polls are showing what they are showing in Scotland. It seems that Labour policy is not to engage properly in this debate, at a time when food banks are on the rise and Labour is supporting austerity.
Perhaps there is some movement in a graveyard in Cumnock where lie the remains of Keir Hardie, because it is a disgrace, and a significant example of the law of triviality, that Labour is ignoring this issue and is not taking it seriously. Parkinson’s law of triviality actually refers to something that deserves greater engagement and understanding.
Scotland’s Place in the UK
Debate between Bob Stewart and Angus Brendan MacNeil(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
My father, Squadron Leader Jock Stewart, MC, was an RAF officer from Glasgow. My mother was from London and served in the Special Operations Executive. I am therefore half Scottish, half English and proudly British. As I come from a service family and have been a soldier myself, I intend to talk about just how valuable men and women from Scotland are to our armed forces.
Scottish soldiers, sailors and airmen have always had a tremendous reputation as brave, ferocious warriors. Throughout history, proportionately more Scots than Englishmen, Welshmen or Irishmen have taken the Queen’s shilling to fight for the Crown. Since 1707, Scottish soldiers have played a crucial part in most battles fought by the British Army.
The Gordon Highlanders had a leading part in the 1815 Waterloo campaign. At the battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815, the Gordons halted the French advance in its tracks with the bayonet. Two days later, the regiment was in the midst of it again on the field of Waterloo. By then, casualties had reduced the gallant Gordons to about 250 men, and yet those incredible soldiers again charged the French frontally with the bayonet. As the Highlanders approached, the French broke into disarray and could only be caught by other Scotsmen on horses. The Scots Greys galloped past the Gordons to get at the French enemy. According to some accounts, Scottish infantrymen clung to the stirrups of the Scottish cavalry so that they could reach the enemy more easily. Is not that wonderful?
Bob Stewart
No, I have heard too much rubbish from the hon. Gentleman this afternoon.
About 700,000 Scots served in the first world war, with about 150,000 losing their lives. The Highlanders earned their nicknames—the devils in skirts or the ladies from hell—at a battle in 1916, when the 51st Highland Division crossed a battlefield littered with the fallen to storm German positions with such force that thousands of prisoners were taken. At the end of the first world war, the 51st Highland Division was widely reckoned to be the best fighting force in France.
The second world war enhanced the Scottish soldier’s incredible reputation. To date, 117 Victoria Crosses have been won by Scotsmen—soldiers, sailors and airmen.
For me, there is nothing more stirring in a fight than the sound of bagpipes. As the British United Nations commander in Bosnia in 1992-93, I used my two pipers frequently. For instance, I asked them to play at line crossings because all of us needed courage to advance through no man’s land, especially as Staff Sergeant Steve Bristow had previously been wounded beside me by a sniper. The sound of bagpipes wafting through the air was an incredible encouragement to those of us who were frightened. My mainly English soldiers loved the skirling, thrilling and impossible to miss sound of the pipes. Once, there was intense fighting all around my base at Vitez. I asked my piper, Lance Corporal Cleary, to stand on the roof and make an impact. He did just that. The fighting and the shooting died down quite quickly as that tremendously emotive and martial sound echoed down the valley.
My purpose this afternoon has been to remind the House just how important those in the British Army—indeed, those in all three services—consider the contribution that is made by their Scottish comrades, both men and women, to be.
Bob Stewart
No.
Scottish men and women form an integral part of our armed forces. I would grieve hugely if they were no longer a part of them. I sincerely hope that that will never happen.
Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Bob Stewart and Angus Brendan MacNeil(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that the cold in Banff and Buchan is balanced only by the warm hearts of its people, and certainly by their good sense in yet again returning an SNP Member. Her points are well made and serious, and indeed they are backed up not only by her own experience, but by evidence from Indiana in the United States and from Portugal. The phones have been busy between my office and Portugal in the last wee while. Mr Rui Agostinho, director of Lisbon’s astronomical observatory, the institution responsible for legal time in Portugal, has said that a company contracted by the European Commission at the time showed that the energy savings gained were ultimately lost with the increase of energy consumption during the morning.
Bob Stewart
Look, we have listened to this all morning. It is clear that we are not absolutely certain what would be the result of a change. Is it not terribly important for us to check by having a trial to determine whether we would actually save more lives and save more energy? All this talk should stop and we should just vote on it now and have the trial.
Mr MacNeil
I admire the hon. and gallant Gentleman’s headlong enthusiasm, but we must reflect before plunging ourselves into 15 months of misery. It can be seriously argued that the change in the late ’60s and early ’70s cost lives, because the rate of road accident deaths did not go down as quickly during that period as it did in subsequent years. If I have to repeat myself again and again before that is understood, I will do so. If we disregard such a serious fact and run to a trial, surely we are putting people in danger.
Mr MacNeil
I say that we should have a series of Novembers. As I have said, I am a conciliatory man, and I have extended an olive branch. Rather than plunge areas of the country north of Manchester into darkness for two months a year, with no sunrise before 9 am, I say, okay, there is an ongoing argument for gathering data, so let us gather data in November, the most dangerous month, instead of over five months of winter and for 15 months in total. We could reduce the inconvenience to 20%, and I am fairly confident that, once we introduce those three months, once we have the attendant misery and once we see what comes of that, lighter evenings will not be seen to have such great benefits after all. We will get the taste of the inconvenience without going through the utter misery of an entire winter period.
Bob Stewart
Why is the hon. Member for the islands of Scotland, where I, too, came from once, confident that the month of November will give him the results that he expects? He does not know, and the best way of finding out is to have a flipping trial.