Trident Renewal

Brian H. Donohoe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I cannot believe what the hon. Gentleman has just said. At a time when submarines from Russia are going up the Clyde and tankers from the same place are at the top of Scotland, he is trying to tell us that we should not have a deterrent. That is absolutely unreal. The idea that we should find ourselves defenceless in those circumstances is a crazy notion.

[Mr MacNeil]

This is not the first time that the hon. Gentleman has struggled to comprehend or believe things, but it is very alarming that he has told us that Russian submarines are going up the Clyde. My goodness! I thought that we had a deterrent. It is clear that his nuclear policies are failing, because by the sound of things, those submarines will be docking in Greenock or Port Glasgow any minute now.

This is not a trivial matter, and it is perhaps due to the difficulty of comprehending it that it is subject to the law of triviality. If ever there was an issue that required engagement for the safeguarding of our future and that of the planet, it is the awfulness, the ghastliness, the death and the destruction that nuclear weapons could cause—and perhaps, sadly, will cause one day.