Validating our long-range nuclear ballistic missile capability to the world may sound morbid, as using that capability operationally would probably mean the apocalypse, but it is entirely necessary. These missiles stand as our deterrent against such a reality ever happening. Testing them occasionally provides validation for our own military and civilian infrastructure structure that supports them, as well as reminding our potential enemies that our capabilities are very real and very, very deadly
It’s not rocket science is it? Trident…it’s a deterrent. For deterrents to work they must be convincing. That’s why the government publishes successful launches and didn’t publicise a failure. Simple…you’d have thought.
Laura Kuenssberg thinks the government is making it up as they go along….
The government seems to have decided now to resort to that answer. Business Secretary Greg Clark has been using that “security” defence as a way of avoiding the issue.
But it’s tricky because the government does indeed talk about weapons testing, even sending out press releases, and publicly awarding trophies to military teams when the tests go well.
When, as it appears they don’t and the results are kept secret, the “security” excuse sounds less convincing.
I don’t think defence matters are Kuenssberg’s strong point having already been hauled over the coals for having misled the public over an answer given by Jeremy Corbyn.
I guess you can’t win…even a successful launch generates ‘the wildest theories’…
The country was awed last weekend when the Navy executed an unannounced launch of a Trident D5 ballistic missile off the California coast. For those that watch for such things, the incredible visual event was clearly a rocket launch, for others it was a canvas on which to paint their wildest theories.
The BBC is misleading us here as well…look at this…
Conservative MP Julian Lewis, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said Mrs May had been “handed a no-win situation” by her predecessor as Prime Minister, David Cameron, whose “spin doctors” had been responsible for a “cover-up”.
He told Today that the government usually released film footage of the “99%” of missile tests deemed a success and that ministers could not “have it both ways” by not announcing when this had not been the case.
Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: “There’s absolutely no doubt that this would have impacted on the debate in Parliament.”
Why does the BBC tell us that CND thinks this would have impacted on the Trident renewal vote, and relates in depth what Lewis said but doesn’t tell us that Lewis also said that the failed launch was totally irrelevant to the debate, emphasising that 99% of tests are successful? In other words it would have had no relevance and no impact on the debate and vote.
Is the BBC just making trouble for May and trying to stir the pot? Kuenssberg may have provided us with the answer to that…and it’s a ‘yes’….
The refusal now to answer questions over the mistake gives even more succour to the government’s opponents.
And the refusal to say “who knew” allows those suspicious of ministers’ motives to wonder what else we don’t know.





