As it is the season of peace and goodwill, you may perhaps want to consider who deserves to be 2007 Arms Control Person of the Year. There are two UK contenders:

Good turn-out  tonight for launch of Calderdale CND.About 70 people on a  hot Friday night.NOT ONE who supported Trident.

Youtube has a number of speeches by Trident Rebel MPs - speeches made outside of parliament to the CND demonstration

Neil Kinnock was on excellent form in his conversation with Michael White for the Fabian Society last night, ranging across Labour history and his life in politics, as well as the leadership, health, education and the House of Lords. But his comments on Trident are generating most interest.

According to some of those who attended tonight's Fabian event in London (Michael White in discussion with Neil Kinnock) the noble Lord Kinnock has suggested that the debate over Trident has been rushed and that the government should think about postponing the vote!

Jim Devine (MP for Livingston) is set to resign his PPS position because of his opposition to Trident.

This is the title of Martin Kettle's excellent piece in today's Guardian.

In summary Kettle takes the view that the choice facing MPs next week is not between keeping Trident or getting rid of Trident, or between keeping a nuclear deterrent or going unilateral. It's not even a costs question. The choice, says Kettle, is between drifting along and then being forced to make a decision out of necessity or trying to carve a more modern and more effective security policy within Europe.

I agree. To my mind there is absolutely no need to renew Trident now. What we should and could be doing is using the debate to re-direct our own  foreign and defence policy towards Europe and the NATO community.

Now is the time to be bold. As our present Leader once told us; as a party we are at our best when at our boldest.

Say these IDIOTS.

Lets face it, they'd sooner see israel engulfed in a mushroom cloud before they decided to take action.

Tehran has no interest in negotiations with the west. It has been nothing more than a delay tactic for them.

In December, the Government published the Defence White Paper; "The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent". More information on this can be found here.

I fully agree with the PM, and he is right to do this for the national security of this country - to protect the multi-cultural community of this country from international terrorism as well as to send strong messages to those states who sponsor terrorism by any means. The majority of 1.6 millions British Muslims will definitely support you on this decision.

I simply cannot understand why we need to debate the future of Trident so soon and so quickly. The four existing submarines that carry the Trident missile only started service between 1994 and 2001, with a planned 30-year life. What is even more relevant is that since their design, the 1998 strategic defence review has reduced their workload considerably, this could therefore extend their life by maybe an additional five or six years. With an eventual reduction to three boats, all this suggests an end to service around the late 2020s, enabling any replacement programme to run alongside that of the United States.

So what is the rush? Why do we need a debate on the replacement now?

To my mind we could get away with leaving any decision for at least another couple of years leaving time for a thoughtful and mature debate - both in the party and in the country. In fact we could leave it even longer (another six or seven years) which would allow for further rounds of multilateral negotiations, several NPT review conferences and a new US President.

... just imagine ...

The ex-Home Secretary has doubts for the need for a early decison on Trident he said in a speech to the Fabian Society entitled 'The World after Bush':

"There is a strong case for prioritising our security spending on what are likely to be the main security threats we face in the future, rather than building new weapons to fight the last war."

Clarke also discussed a range of issues on the EU in terms of it taking a more proactive foreign and defence policy (e.g the Middle East).  Clarke also discussed issues relating to pre-war planning in Iraq.

The World After Bush- Charles Clarke
http://www.fabian-society.org.uk/press_office/news_latest_all.asp?pressid=578
(full speech or what the press office has put on the website)

Clarke comes out fighting against replacement for Trident - 'a new weapon to fight an old war'
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1960318,00.html

Clarke accuses Cabinet of rushing decision on Trident replacement
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2026820.ece

Still hoping for a job, if the elephant forgets
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,,1960342,00.html
(Micheal White offers his analysis of Clarke's speech and Clarke's future job prospects).

The idea of our government spending billions of pounds (estimates seem to vary) on weapons of mass destruction at this point in history would appear to be an error of such enormous proportions it literally takes my breath away.

I'm delighted there'll be a debate and a vote: but that debate has to take place inside and outside parliament, and all aspects of the debate need to be considered.  While an 'independent' nuclear 'deterrent' like Trident is expensive cosmetics, we must not have an expensive cosmetic debate: it has to be a real one.

No movement over the Trident debate allowed at conference.

AS Heath suggests a different, more cunning, approach to our nuclear deterrent