1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Why would it need to be a nuke?
Because my advisors have told me that is the only 100% certain way to eliminate the threat to ten of the world's finest cities. We know within a five block radius where the weapons are, but don't have eyes on them. For example.
On topic, I was in Castle Point yesterday. There’s one point where there are, traditionally, lots of Tory posters, and in my experience of the area, going back 50 years, although they are on a roadside they’re never defaced. This time they have been, and, apparently, replaced and defaced again. Make of that what you will.
Secondly two of my family are teachers of what I still call the Upper Sixth, and told me those of their classes who can vote are a) strongly for Labour and b) definitely going to vote. And that applies to the junior members (in their 20’s) of my family. I’ve also never seen them as fired up about it.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
Possibly more fall out - but it's jolly tricky to get one to go off, so exploding one nuke close to others wouldn't set them off.
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
He said "across the whole income spectrum" in the interview.
The whole approach of the Tories is contrary to the fundamental principle of a just society, namely "from each according to his/her means, to each according to his/her needs". It is much simpler and fairer to have universal benefits and recover the funds from the better off by higher taxation on them. The person who is best suited to be CoE post 8/6/17 made this explicitly clear in a recent radio interview.
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
Voters do not trust Corbyn on security. That wins it for the Tories. But this campaign has shown that what comes next for them will not be pretty.
Doesn't look like Labour's going to give up Marxism and return to Methodism either....
Do you support dropping a bomb and killing millions of innocent people?
Yes.
You have no concept or respect for human life.
And you want to make the UK more vulnerable to nuclear attack. As Nye Bevan said
....you call that statesmanship? I call it an emotional spasm
If you used a nuclear weapon, you would be responsible for killing innocent people. Murder.
Murder is a capital one offence. You could commit that crime.
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
He said "across the whole income spectrum" in the interview.
The whole approach of the Tories is contrary to the fundamental principle of a just society, namely "from each according to his/her means, to each according to his/her needs". It is much simpler and fairer to have universal benefits and recover the funds from the better off by higher taxation on them. The person who is best suited to be CoE post 8/6/17 made this explicitly clear in a recent radio interview.
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
Voters do not trust Corbyn on security. That wins it for the Tories. But this campaign has shown that what comes next for them will not be pretty.
Doesn't look like Labour's going to give up Marxism and return to Methodism either....
Do you support dropping a bomb and killing millions of innocent people?
Yes.
You have no concept or respect for human life.
And you want to make the UK more vulnerable to nuclear attack. As Nye Bevan said
....you call that statesmanship? I call it an emotional spasm
If you used a nuclear weapon, you would be responsible for killing innocent people. Murder.
Murder is a capital one offence. You could commit that crime.
But if you retaliate you may prevent further attacks, against more of your cities.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
AIUI (and IANAE), but it would depend on the type of devices, whether they are armed, etc, etc.
But nukes (particularly hydrogen bombs) are finiticky things to get to explode. I would think most problems would occur from radioactive material being strewn about, and that'd probably be minor compared to the actual fallout from the main weapon.
Personally, biological weapons concern me much more than nukes. They have the same capability of killing, and might be much easier to make and harder to defend against.
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
He said "across the whole income spectrum" in the interview.
The whole approach of the Tories is contrary to the fundamental principle of a just society, namely "from each according to his/her means, to each according to his/her needs". It is much simpler and fairer to have universal benefits and recover the funds from the better off by higher taxation on them. The person who is best suited to be CoE post 8/6/17 made this explicitly clear in a recent radio interview.
Since when has a tenet of Marxist philosophy been "the fundamental principle of a just society"?
If it's not equitable, it's not just.
Justice isn't to do with outcomes, it's to do with fairness. People should be rewarded for their efforts and contributions. Society has a duty to eliminate as many barriers to this as they can - ensuring an excellent education, preventing arbitrary discrimination, etc. Equality of opportunity is fair, not equality of outcome.
The second element (welfare, health provision, etc) is more about what type of society you want to live in rather than a matter of a "just society". I believe it behoves a decent society to care for the weak/unfortunate, but that's not a question of whether society is "just" or not.
(But then I am a fan of Aquinas)
Justice, fairness and outcomes are pretty intertwined. As you say, equality of opportunity is absolutely key. The issue is how best you ensure this.
I suspect we agree on more than you want to admit
I am certain of it. Though I suspect we are irreconcilable on the impact of Brexit!
Possibly not.
On a medium term basis, I can easily believe that GDP will be lower under Brexit. But I'm more focused on GDP per capita for the C2/D segment of the population. If that comes at the cost of A/Bs living in London I'm fine with that.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
The whole point is deterrence, which Corbyn would completely nullify.
No. Anyone willing to use a nuclear weapon has no respect for humanity and THE INNOCENT people that will die.
Innocent people die. I don't understand why people want innocent people to die.
Destroy the planet for the ego.
Do you support the war against and defeat of Germany in WW11?
Of course I do but some of the actions were not justified. I don't support the holocaust or the dropping of bombs from the germans and british of german/british cities that killed thousands of innocent people.
No one supports war but war happens and innocent lives are lost
The difference is your looking for it and advocating using a weapon that doesn't avoid killing millions of people.
This is not about deterring people. This about us as individuals. Do we as individuals have the capability and willingness to kill innocent people that have done nothing wrong and to shrug your shoulders and say "people die in wars" is just not good enough.
A nuclear bomb kills millions of people and anyone willing to use is committing first degree murder a million times over because there is never a just cause to use it.
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
Voters do not trust Corbyn on security. That wins it for the Tories. But this campaign has shown that what comes next for them will not be pretty.
Remind us where "security" is ranked polling when voters are asked what matters to them?
My sense is that for most voters it is a given. Corbyn changes that because of his past, as well as his views on nukes and NATO.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Why would it need to be a nuke?
Because my advisors have told me that is the only 100% certain way to eliminate the threat to ten of the world's finest cities. We know within a five block radius where the weapons are, but don't have eyes on them. For example.
Ok, so you've picked an example where you kill fewer people to save more. What if the innocent population of the urban centre containing the bombs exceeds that of the target cities (which include London)?
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
You would get a bit more radiation around the blast site although given the devastation there already, that'd make little difference. The other bombs wouldn't go off in a chain reaction: you have to detonate the fissile (and fusion, if appropriate) material in a very specific way to do that.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
I bet your dead proud of yourself that you killed millions of innocent people because you couldn't get your ego out of the way of showing any kind of respect towards human life.
So how would you disarm the nucleur threat
Precision bombing of facilities to start with through international co-operation.
And that won't kill any innocents? No blood on your hands?
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
Voters do not trust Corbyn on security. That wins it for the Tories. But this campaign has shown that what comes next for them will not be pretty.
Remind us where "security" is ranked polling when voters are asked what matters to them?
What matters changes - but if there is a severe security threat, it comes first.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
You would get a bit more radiation around the blast site although given the devastation there already, that'd make little difference. The other bombs wouldn't go off in a chain reaction: you have to detonate the fissile (and fusion, if appropriate) material in a very specific way to do that.
But it would render them unusable, say my advisors.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
AIUI (and IANAE), but it would depend on the type of devices, whether they are armed, etc, etc.
But nukes (particularly hydrogen bombs) are finiticky things to get to explode. I would think most problems would occur from radioactive material being strewn about, and that'd probably be minor compared to the actual fallout from the main weapon.
Personally, biological weapons concern me much more than nukes. They have the same capability of killing, and might be much easier to make and harder to defend against.
Does being "armed" actually mean anything for a nuclear device?
Like you say, the main concern would be additional fallout by spreading around uranium/plutonium from the warheads of the other bombs. A minor concern, given the circumstances.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
You would get a bit more radiation around the blast site although given the devastation there already, that'd make little difference. The other bombs wouldn't go off in a chain reaction: you have to detonate the fissile (and fusion, if appropriate) material in a very specific way to do that.
But it would render them unusable, say my advisors.
Yeah, it would.. because no one would be around them to use them
Re nukes and their efficacy, one recent(ish) example was the Gulf War in 1991, where Saddam was told that any nonconventional weapons used would bring about a nuclear response. He had chemical weapons at the time and had used them against Iran and the Kurds. He didn't use them against the UN forces. Make of that what you will.
It's all been done before. In 1945, Harry had that decision to make. They prepared a million body-bags for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Other options? Only one really. Let Stailn's divisions over-run China and Korea and the death toll of innocents would be much higher.
Moral absolutes are easy but may lead to more deaths.
By comparison, the deterrence theory has much to recommend it.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
The Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 only extends to the UK and associated territories.
Secondly two of my family are teachers of what I still call the Upper Sixth, and told me those of their classes who can vote are a) strongly for Labour and b) definitely going to vote. And that applies to the junior members (in their 20’s) of my family. I’ve also never seen them as fired up about it.
That's been my experience as well. Won't vote and don't knows now voting Labour. Parents vote Labour kids don't vote now turning the whole household out to vote. There's definitely something in the air - as for "not seeing it in canvass returns" in my seat we're barely scratching the surface with door knocking. In neighbouring seats defended hard they are doing more but it's still a canvas made up mostly of old data. Anyone saying "we've canvassed extensively over the last month" probably hasn't...
It's all been done before. In 1945, Harry had that decision to make. They prepared a million body-bags for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Options? Only one really. Let Stailn's divisions over-run China and Korea and the death toll of innocents would be much higher.
Moral absolutes are easy but may lead to more deaths.
By comparison, the deterrence theory has much to recommend it.
Not just Harry Truman. Britain needed to give its sign-off too as part of the deal about joint development. Attlee also made the call.
On topic, a decent overall majority would be a decent overall majority. How it was achieved would soon be forgotten. Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory but it is still a route to victory.
And it might yet be quite a bit more than decent.
If she gets a really good majority as originally expected, she will be vindicated. The risk is that she gets a functional majority but no mandate. Her evident purpose was not just to get the numbers but also carte blanche to decide whatever she wants, in particular on Brexit. She fought the election on her leadership and not on policy. If her leadership is diminished, she can't point to "the people voted for that" when she has to get tricky stuff through parliament.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Why would it need to be a nuke?
Because my advisors have told me that is the only 100% certain way to eliminate the threat to ten of the world's finest cities. We know within a five block radius where the weapons are, but don't have eyes on them. For example.
Ok, so you've picked an example where you kill fewer people to save more. What if the innocent population of the urban centre containing the bombs exceeds that of the target cities (which include London)?
I gave as an example Raqqa. Not Sao Paulo....
I was challenged to come up with a scenario where I as Prime Minister/President would use a nuke. Whilst the idea of their use is utterly repugnant, there are limited circumstances where I would use them to protect life and protect our way of life. Imagine if those ten cities were lost - ignore the loss of life, just the loss to our culture would be immense.
And oddly, as a Conservative I am quite a lonely voice in being no fan of Trident. It is because there are so few instances where it could viably be used that I believe the money could be better spent to keep us all safer.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
I bet your dead proud of yourself that you killed millions of innocent people because you couldn't get your ego out of the way of showing any kind of respect towards human life.
So how would you disarm the nucleur threat
Precision bombing of facilities to start with through international co-operation.
And that won't kill any innocents? No blood on your hands?
You are a deluded fool. As is Corbyn.
You know nothing about the defence industry and the products they have in the pipeline and have in service.
You don't need nuclear weapons to defend a country. Did it stop Manchester? London?
Pearl Harbour 1941 Hiroshima 1945. Four year gap. Another journalist making money from writing hate puts things out of context.
You really don't understand this, do you? Either that or you're just trying to mislead.
The US could atom bomb Japan without much concern precisely because Japan *didn't* have nukes. Pearl Harbor has nothing to do with it (other than in a historical context).
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
I bet your dead proud of yourself that you killed millions of innocent people because you couldn't get your ego out of the way of showing any kind of respect towards human life.
So how would you disarm the nucleur threat
Precision bombing of facilities to start with through international co-operation.
And that won't kill any innocents? No blood on your hands?
You are a deluded fool. As is Corbyn.
You know nothing about the defence industry and the products they have in the pipeline and have in service.
You don't need nuclear weapons to defend a country. Did it stop Manchester? London?
You are dumb as a brick. Consider this correspondence closed.
Re nukes and their efficacy, one recent(ish) example was the Gulf War in 1991, where Saddam was told that any nonconventional weapons used would bring about a nuclear response. He had chemical weapons at the time and had used them against Iran and the Kurds. He didn't use them against the UN forces. Make of that what you will.
Didn't Hitler refrain from using nerve agents against the UK because he was convinced we had developed our own (we hadn't) and that we would respond in kind?
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
I bet your dead proud of yourself that you killed millions of innocent people because you couldn't get your ego out of the way of showing any kind of respect towards human life.
So how would you disarm the nucleur threat
Precision bombing of facilities to start with through international co-operation.
And that won't kill any innocents? No blood on your hands?
You are a deluded fool. As is Corbyn.
You know nothing about the defence industry and the products they have in the pipeline and have in service.
You don't need nuclear weapons to defend a country. Did it stop Manchester? London?
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
That would depend on the context. War permits states to use reasonable force in protection of their people and interests. In extreme cases, a nuke would be proportionate.
Pearl Harbour 1941 Hiroshima 1945. Four year gap. Another journalist making money from writing hate puts things out of context.
You really don't understand this, do you? Either that or you're just trying to mislead.
The US could atom bomb Japan without much concern precisely because Japan *didn't* have nukes. Pearl Harbor has nothing to do with it (other than in a historical context).
If a PM used a nuclear bomb, would you support an international trial for murder of all the innocent people that they have just killed in one act?
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Why would it need to be a nuke?
Because my advisors have told me that is the only 100% certain way to eliminate the threat to ten of the world's finest cities. We know within a five block radius where the weapons are, but don't have eyes on them. For example.
Ok, so you've picked an example where you kill fewer people to save more. What if the innocent population of the urban centre containing the bombs exceeds that of the target cities (which include London)?
For the leader of a target county why would they balace their loss against the impact of not doing anything. Your leaders prime responsibility is to their country not the world.
It is not just deterrent. It was always stated in the Cold War that if the USSR attacked Western Europe and it became clear that conventional forces could not hold them back, the West would use nuclear weapons. And this was (and is) quite correct. If the attacker does not think that you will use them and you do (for example in a very limited way) it re-establishes
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
The whole point is deterrence, which Corbyn would completely nullify.
The concept of deterrance via Mutual Assured Destruction is a historic one, really stemming from WW2, where both sides believed mass bombing of cities part of a strategy. Bomber Harris believed he could win a war by bombing, thereby avoiding the massive land battles that Britain was too weak to fight. He was wrong, but the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb did raise the possibility that simply his tactics were not extreme enough.
For most of tbe Cold War the Warsaw Pact had an apparently overwhelming conventional army and airforce that would in theory be able to wipe out NATO ground forces in a matter of days. This is why we had a first use policy, because we knew we could not hold out without unleashing radioactive carnage on the world.
Such a war with Russia is now inconceivable. Russia is much weaker now, and sufficiently friendly that we let Russians linked closely to their government to buy up property in London, including football clubs and newspapers. We even let them interfere in our elections with only mild annoyance.
Nuclear deterrence was always about being too weak conventionally to fight. It now so distorts defence spending that we have the ability to destroy Moscow from under the ocean, but have two carriers without planes, one of which will be immediately mothballed, Destroyers with elecctrics more unreliable than BA's IT upgrade, and cannot deploy more than a single battle strength brigade.
Non state actors with nukes would not be deterred by MAD, and small states like Iran or NK are threats only to their neighbours. Who do we aim our nukes at? They are simply obselete and distort defence policy.
MAD is the strategy of the Manchester Bomber gone global. You have attacked and destroyed that which I hold dear, so I will massacre your women and children. Nukes are only used when you have already lost, and intend to take the rest of the world with you. They are immoral, obselete and dangerous.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
The Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 only extends to the UK and associated territories.
Can you just answer the question Would you support the pm being arrested for murder and if they used a nuclear bomb?
It could get worse for the Tories. What effect will Fallon's promise not to raise taxes on those with higher incomes have on voting intention? It sends the message "for the few, not the many" and will repel more voters than it attracts.
He said "across the whole income spectrum" in the interview.
The whole approach of the Tories is contrary to the fundamental principle of a just society, namely "from each according to his/her means, to each according to his/her needs". It is much simpler and fairer to have universal benefits and recover the funds from the better off by higher taxation on them. The person who is best suited to be CoE post 8/6/17 made this explicitly clear in a recent radio interview.
Since when has a tenet of Marxist philosophy been "the fundamental principle of a just society"?
If it's not equitable, it's not just.
Justice isn't to do with outcomes, it's to do with fairness. People should be rewarded for their efforts and contributions. Society has a duty to eliminate as many barriers to this as they can - ensuring an excellent education, preventing arbitrary discrimination, etc. Equality of opportunity is fair, not equality of outcome.
The second element (welfare, health provision, etc) is more about what type of society you want to live in rather than a matter of a "just society". I believe it behoves a decent society to care for the weak/unfortunate, but that's not a question of whether society is "just" or not.
(But then I am a fan of Aquinas)
Justice, fairness and outcomes are pretty intertwined. As you say, equality of opportunity is absolutely key. The issue is how best you ensure this.
I suspect we agree on more than you want to admit
I am certain of it. Though I suspect we are irreconcilable on the impact of Brexit!
Possibly not.
On a medium term basis, I can easily believe that GDP will be lower under Brexit. But I'm more focused on GDP per capita for the C2/D segment of the population. If that comes at the cost of A/Bs living in London I'm fine with that.
The problem is that any cost borne by A/Bs in London will be far less than that borne by others elsewhere. The better off will be least affected by Brexit. As I said, we are irreconcilable on this!
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Seems hard to imagine intel that's certain enough to justify the killing of (at least) hundreds of thousands of innocent people but too vague to allow you to prevent the departure of the individual agents.
Would it still be the same answer if they'd assembled in a western city before travelling to ten others?
With the level of intelligence the scenario implies there would be plenty of non-nuclear options.
I am no scientist, but what would be the overall impact of dropping a nuclear bomb on 10 nuclear devices?
You would get a bit more radiation around the blast site although given the devastation there already, that'd make little difference. The other bombs wouldn't go off in a chain reaction: you have to detonate the fissile (and fusion, if appropriate) material in a very specific way to do that.
But it would render them unusable, say my advisors.
It would. I may have misinterpreted. I thought you were asking about whether there'd be a danger of secondary nuclear explosions.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
Not if they were properly authorised to utilise it at the time and in the manner they did
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
The Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 only extends to the UK and associated territories.
Can you just answer the question Would you support the pm being arrested for murder and if they used a nuclear bomb?
Given that they aren't arrested when there are civilian casualties in war, no. Truman wasn't arrested, for instance.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
Not if they were properly authorised to utilise it at the time and in the manner they did
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
We have intelligence that ISIS has acquired ten suitcase size nuclear bombs. They are currently in Raqqa. In 2 hours they will be dispersed by agents seeking to send them to destroy 10 western cities. In that case, I would deploy a nuke. Fuck yes.
Why would it need to be a nuke?
Because my advisors have told me that is the only 100% certain way to eliminate the threat to ten of the world's finest cities. We know within a five block radius where the weapons are, but don't have eyes on them. For example.
Ok, so you've picked an example where you kill fewer people to save more. What if the innocent population of the urban centre containing the bombs exceeds that of the target cities (which include London)?
I gave as an example Raqqa. Not Sao Paulo....
I was challenged to come up with a scenario where I as Prime Minister/President would use a nuke. Whilst the idea of their use is utterly repugnant, there are limited circumstances where I would use them to protect life and protect our way of life. Imagine if those ten cities were lost - ignore the loss of life, just the loss to our culture would be immense.
And oddly, as a Conservative I am quite a lonely voice in being no fan of Trident. It is because there are so few instances where it could viably be used that I believe the money could be better spent to keep us all safer.
I'll put that down as a "maybe" but don't disagree with your logic so much as the plausibility of the premise.
I'm not sure a clearcut situation like that can ever arise, or at least the chances are vanishingly small (see also Yes, Prime Minister)
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
The Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 only extends to the UK and associated territories.
Can you just answer the question Would you support the pm being arrested for murder and if they used a nuclear bomb?
Given that they aren't arrested when there are civilian casualties in war, no. Truman wasn't arrested, for instance.
There should be no consequences for the individual that uses a nuclear weapon because they work for a state.
Hmm...not completely convinced by this thread header. Nature abhors a vacuum and the Great British public do not like a walk over. They have tried to create a viable opposition from the extremely poor material available and made a half decent fist of it.
The Tory party likes people who win. They even put up with Cameron as long as he won despite his views on Europe. If May wins the stunning ineptitude of this campaign will be largely forgotten and wholly forgiven. If she does not win she is toast.
My guess remains that she will win enough. Not the landslide once thought, the 2022 election will no longer be decided in this election with Labour out of sight, but a solid win none the less. I now think the Tories will end up with about 370 seats, a majority of 90. That will do. Labour just above 200, the SNP at 47/48 and the Lib Dems still at 8 or thereby.
The concept of deterrance via Mutual Assured Destruction is a historic one, really stemming from WW2, where both sides believed mass bombing of cities part of a strategy. Bomber Harris believed he could win a war by bombing, thereby avoiding the massive land battles that Britain was too weak to fight. He was wrong, but the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb did raise the possibility that simply his tactics were not extreme enough.
For most of tbe Cold War the Warsaw Pact had an apparently overwhelming conventional army and airforce that would in tbeory be able to wipe out NATO ground forces in a matter of days. This is why we had a first use policy, because we new we could not hold out without unleashing radioactive carnage on the world.
Such a war with Russia is now inconceivable. Russia is much weaker now, and sufficiently friendly that we let Russians linked closely to their government to buy up property in London, including football clubs and newspapers. We even let them interfere in our elections with only mild annoyance.
Nuclear deterrance was always about being too weak conventionally to fight. It now so distorts defence spending that we have the ability to destroy Moscow from under the ocean, but have two carriers without planes, one of which will be immediately mothballed, Destroyers with elecctricsmore unreliable than BA's IT upgrade, and cannot deploy more than a single battle strength brigade.
Non state actors with nukes would not be deterred by MAD, and small states like Iran or NK are threats only to their neighbours. Who do we aim our nukes at? They are simply obselete and distort defence policy.
MAD is the strategy of the Manchester Bomber gone global. You have attacked and destroyed that which I hold dear, so I will massacre your women and children. Nukes are only used when you have already lost, and intend to take the rest of the world with you. They are imoral, obselete and dangerous.
Lordy. Not again. We don't have two carriers without planes. And the second ship, the Prince of Wales, is not going to be mothballed. AFAICR the QE is due in service 2020, and the PoW in 2023.
Oh, and the BA's recent failure does not appear to have been caused by an IT upgrade, although details are annoyingly sketchy atm. It might be something much simpler and worrying for BA.
Could you actually try to write something containing facts?
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
I'm in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament but when I read such nonsense partisan posts I have an urge to obliterate the entire planet with H bombs in the hope that in 65 million years or so we might get some intelligent life.
The concept of nuclear deterrence (which belongs to a bygone age in my opinion) is that state actors with nuclear technology will be deterred from using it by the credible threat that another nuclear power is also willing to use it. It breaks down because first it assumes that nuclear technology is inevitably exclusively going to be in the hands of state actors and secondly it assumes those state actors have a minimum level of rationality. But those advocating it aren't genocidal maniacs. Far from seeking nuclear obliteration, they are trying by their words now to prevent precisely what appals you from being carried out by others.
An erudite post. The idea of nuclear deterrance has rather been mucked up by those for whom death isn't a deterrant but something to be welcomed. Maybe we should have bomb casings filled with joss-sticks for Jihadists. Smart bombs.
IMPORTANT ACCOUNT INFORMATION Having reviewed your account, we are notifying you that your account will not be eligible for Betfair Sportsbook promotions, including Best Odds Guaranteed, in future.
We can assure you that this decision has only be taken after careful consideration and that it does not affect your ability to play on the Betfair Exchange and Betfair Gaming channels.
I've never even used any of their sportsbook promos. Unless you count their Tory price on Dumfries and Galloway as a promotion.
Secondly two of my family are teachers of what I still call the Upper Sixth, and told me those of their classes who can vote are a) strongly for Labour and b) definitely going to vote. And that applies to the junior members (in their 20’s) of my family. I’ve also never seen them as fired up about it.
That's been my experience as well. Won't vote and don't knows now voting Labour. Parents vote Labour kids don't vote now turning the whole household out to vote. There's definitely something in the air - as for "not seeing it in canvass returns" in my seat we're barely scratching the surface with door knocking. In neighbouring seats defended hard they are doing more but it's still a canvas made up mostly of old data. Anyone saying "we've canvassed extensively over the last month" probably hasn't...
Mr P, I would think that a lot of the parents of ‘my’ teachers children don’t vote Labour. Normally, anyway.
Specifically, Britain's nuclear programme is a nonsense in my view. The military have mixed views on it as well. But it's totemic. The public think it should be there, even if it's not clear why in a practical sense. Corbyn has impressed me during this campaign in the degree to which he has made himself into a normal politician and been willing to make the necessary compromises. Nuclear weapons appear to be the step too far.
I wonder if some Labour moderates are now regretting not letting Jezza have his way on Trident. He was unable to play the cost of Trident card because he's going to renew it. Labour's position just looks confused.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
Yes. But the theory of nuclear deterrent is that the knowledge of the damage it would cause to their own country prevents any rational actor from pressing the button first.
Clearly the doctrine is not a perfect defence, but it is part of the set of tools that we have.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DEPLOY A NUCLEAR WEAPON? ARE YOU TOTALLY FUCKING MAD!
It's very unlikely. But if the fear that we might be insane enough to do so deters France, for example, from invading the UK then it is a good thing.
Why would we drop a nuclear weapon on France? Can't we use something else.
My preference would be to use something else.
But you can't exclude circumstances in which it might be appropriate to deploy nuclear weapons.
How could you sleep at night knowing your responsible for killing millions of innocent people that did nothing to you.
The PM is the person we employ to do the things that we don't want to do, but know that we must.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder if they used a nuclear bomb?
Not if they were properly authorised to utilise it at the time and in the manner they did
Governments are not individuals.
So the killing of innocent people is just.
The Doctrine of Jus ad bellum sets out the following criteria for a just war:
* Proper authority and public declaration [it's proper authority that distinguishes war from murder] * Just cause / right intention * Probability of success * Proportionality * Last resort
It is difficult to construct a scenario when these criteria would be met (it's probability of success that I struggle most with) but not impossible
The principle of proportionality explicitly allows for the killing of civilians provided that it is not the primary objective of the action
MAD depended on people believing that the other side would use it if they were attacked, no matter what the moral principles involved. Fortunately, evil people tend to believe that other people are evil too, so it worked.
It may not work against IS because death is fine with them. But who knows what other threats may arise. The Kims in North Korea may be evil but they are rational too. And who knows what other threats may arise in the near future.
Re nukes and their efficacy, one recent(ish) example was the Gulf War in 1991, where Saddam was told that any nonconventional weapons used would bring about a nuclear response. He had chemical weapons at the time and had used them against Iran and the Kurds. He didn't use them against the UN forces. Make of that what you will.
Didn't Hitler refrain from using nerve agents against the UK because he was convinced we had developed our own (we hadn't) and that we would respond in kind?
IIRC, it was more because he thought that they wouldn't be effective due to British gasmasks, though I don't recall the details that clearly. There may also have been an element that in 1940, Hitler was still looking to cut a deal with Britain if he could get the terms, and obviously the use of gas would have complicated that.
Actually, I'm not too sure why the Germans didn't use gas, if not against the Allies in the west then against the Soviets, against whom they were fighting a war of annihilation.
Does being "armed" actually mean anything for a nuclear device?
Like you say, the main concern would be additional fallout by spreading around uranium/plutonium from the warheads of the other bombs. A minor concern, given the circumstances.
From what I've read in the past, there are various states of 'armed'. Where possible, the fissile material is kept separate from the rest of the bomb (obviously impossible to do on an SSBN). Then there are multiple, redundant triggers designed to prevent erroneous signals from initiating the weapon.
The deep, dank recesses of my memory contain a story that in one broken arrow accident (? Palomores ?), all bar one failsafe failed when the bomb hit the ground. The Yanks were so concerned that there might have been an accidental explosion that they contacted the Russians about it, and both agreed to design better triggers.
IMPORTANT ACCOUNT INFORMATION Having reviewed your account, we are notifying you that your account will not be eligible for Betfair Sportsbook promotions, including Best Odds Guaranteed, in future.
We can assure you that this decision has only be taken after careful consideration and that it does not affect your ability to play on the Betfair Exchange and Betfair Gaming channels.
I've never even used any of their sportsbook promos. Unless you count their Tory price on Dumfries and Galloway as a promotion.
Pearl Harbour 1941 Hiroshima 1945. Four year gap. Another journalist making money from writing hate puts things out of context.
You really don't understand this, do you? Either that or you're just trying to mislead.
The US could atom bomb Japan without much concern precisely because Japan *didn't* have nukes. Pearl Harbor has nothing to do with it (other than in a historical context).
If a PM used a nuclear bomb, would you support an international trial for murder of all the innocent people that they have just killed in one act?
I do not believe that Truman was a war criminal for bombing Hiroshima or Nagasaki (which weren't even the most deadly raids in WWII - the Tokyo firebombing was, though no-one remembers that because it's not politically interesting).
The atomic raids were justified and, as such, given the technology available, necessary.
Nuclear weapons are vastly more powerful, but it's a matter of degree. The bomb (MOAB) used in Afghanistan was conventional.
Let's all agree .... war is bad. Let's put it on a placard and have a demo - that will bring IS to its senses.
How about we question peoples willingness and thirst for committing murder by killing innocent people.
What use is that? Do you think Putin or Assad or Kim or ISIS give a damn about 'questioning'? International relations aren't a fucking seminar.
Question. It's 1938. Hitler stands at the gates to Czechoslovakia, demanding unification with the Sudentenland. You agree a chat. What do you say?
You think because I refuse to drop a nuclear weapon on innocent people that I wouldn't use other weapons? No.
As stated already, the defence industry has so much advanced technology in the pipeline and in service that the nuclear bomb would never be needed because you can use technology to kill people that you need to kill. You don't need a nuclear bomb under any circumstances
Does being "armed" actually mean anything for a nuclear device?
Like you say, the main concern would be additional fallout by spreading around uranium/plutonium from the warheads of the other bombs. A minor concern, given the circumstances.
From what I've read in the past, there are various states of 'armed'. Where possible, the fissile material is kept separate from the rest of the bomb (obviously impossible to do on an SSBN). Then there are multiple, redundant triggers designed to prevent erroneous signals from initiating the weapon.
The deep, dank recesses of my memory contain a story that in one broken arrow accident (? Palomores ?), all bar one failsafe failed when the bomb hit the ground. The Yanks were so concerned that there might have been an accidental explosion that they contacted the Russians about it, and both agreed to design better triggers.
Yet a quick Google doesn't bring it up. Hmmmm.
Expunged from the record?
I guess you could have a situation where the critical mass is achieved accidentally, without the detonation of the conventional explosives. You'd have to be pretty unlucky though.
Saying that, I wonder if they have ever detonated two nukes at once to simulate it?
So if only 1 in 20 consent to partaking in a poll, that means to get a sample of 2,000, you need to make 40,000 calls. That means you are going to be hitting on many activists and party members.
We've seen how Momentum have gamed Union elections, the Labour leadership election and audiences for Question Time and the BBC debate programmes. Is it possible that they are gaming the polls too somehow, or at least having their members on alert to accept any invitation to any survey on the chance that it's a political poll? They are clearly more motivated than any other organisation and have been successful elsewhere.
I just can't believe that if there was such a rise in Labour support, Labour canvassers wouldn't be detecting it and shouting about it all over social media
Specifically, Britain's nuclear programme is a nonsense in my view. The military have mixed views on it as well. But it's totemic. The public think it should be there, even if it's not clear why in a practical sense. Corbyn has impressed me during this campaign in the degree to which he has made himself into a normal politician and been willing to make the necessary compromises. Nuclear weapons appear to be the step too far.
Specifically, Britain's nuclear programme is a nonsense in my view. The military have mixed views on it as well. But it's totemic. The public think it should be there, even if it's not clear why in a practical sense. Corbyn has impressed me during this campaign in the degree to which he has made himself into a normal politician and been willing to make the necessary compromises. Nuclear weapons appear to be the step too far.
Oddly enough the biggest compromise and the most effective one was changing to a blue suit from the shabby vanilla one he usually wears. I know this sounds like superficial crap but having had to sit around a table with execs from P&G many times discussing what colour tie a model should be wearing I can vouch for the fact it's not trivial.*
*(In real life of course it is trivial but in the whacky world of advertising/marketing it really isn't)
Nuclear weapons are vastly more powerful, but it's a matter of degree. The bomb (MOAB) used in Afghanistan was conventional.
Let's all agree .... war is bad. Let's put it on a placard and have a demo - that will bring IS to its senses.
How about we question peoples willingness and thirst for committing murder by killing innocent people.
What use is that? Do you think Putin or Assad or Kim or ISIS give a damn about 'questioning'? International relations aren't a fucking seminar.
Question. It's 1938. Hitler stands at the gates to Czechoslovakia, demanding unification with the Sudentenland. You agree a chat. What do you say?
You think because I refuse to drop a nuclear weapon on innocent people that I wouldn't use other weapons? No.
As stated already, the defence industry has so much advanced technology in the pipeline and in service that the nuclear bomb would never be needed because you can use technology to kill people that you need to kill. You don't need a nuclear bomb under any circumstances
WWII killed more innocent people than any other war. Probably *every* other war in the preceding century. You don't need nukes to do that. So either you're against fighting major wars at all or you should be willing to use nukes or you're a hypocrite or you don't understand.
The Raqqa scenario illustrates precisely why Trident is a dinosaur. If we hard hard Intel that destroying Raqqa would save London, Paris, Berlin gets then yes, nuke it. Which you can't with Trident. Our SLBMs are a no-strike weapon, built to sit under the sea as the world burns. SIOP envisaged their retention in a second strike role after a counter-force strike had already laid waste to this country. So no, Trident doesn't deter anyone, it was built for use AFTER deterrence failed.
A MIRVed missile is no use against a single target - unless you target all the warheads on the same target. What we need is what we don't have - gravity bombs and cruise missiles. It's those nukes which would deter the kind of threat we face, and instead of building some we have to renew the doomsday machines which literally serve no military purpose.
Anyway, the number of people in the country having this debate is us and only us. The people of this country have pulled together and lit candles in defiance against one bomb in Manchester which killed 22 innocents. Unwillingness to hypothetically kill 220,000 innocents with a nuke is not the issue which will swing votes in this election
Does being "armed" actually mean anything for a nuclear device?
Like you say, the main concern would be additional fallout by spreading around uranium/plutonium from the warheads of the other bombs. A minor concern, given the circumstances.
From what I've read in the past, there are various states of 'armed'. Where possible, the fissile material is kept separate from the rest of the bomb (obviously impossible to do on an SSBN). Then there are multiple, redundant triggers designed to prevent erroneous signals from initiating the weapon.
The deep, dank recesses of my memory contain a story that in one broken arrow accident (? Palomores ?), all bar one failsafe failed when the bomb hit the ground. The Yanks were so concerned that there might have been an accidental explosion that they contacted the Russians about it, and both agreed to design better triggers.
Yet a quick Google doesn't bring it up. Hmmmm.
Expunged from the record?
I guess you could have a situation where the critical mass is achieved accidentally, without the detonation of the conventional explosives. You'd have to be pretty unlucky though.
Saying that, I wonder if they have ever detonated two nukes at once to simulate it?
You probably wouldn't need two nukes; just one nuke and the innards of another sans fissile material. Although I'm unsure how you'd retrieve data from the experiment (perhaps marker material?)
The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.
The Raqqa scenario illustrates precisely why Trident is a dinosaur. If we hard hard Intel that destroying Raqqa would save London, Paris, Berlin gets then yes, nuke it. Which you can't with Trident. Our SLBMs are a no-strike weapon, built to sit under the sea as the world burns. SIOP envisaged their retention in a second strike role after a counter-force strike had already laid waste to this country. So no, Trident doesn't deter anyone, it was built for use AFTER deterrence failed.
A MIRVed missile is no use against a single target - unless you target all the warheads on the same target. What we need is what we don't have - gravity bombs and cruise missiles. It's those nukes which would deter the kind of threat we face, and instead of building some we have to renew the doomsday machines which literally serve no military purpose.
Anyway, the number of people in the country having this debate is us and only us. The people of this country have pulled together and lit candles in defiance against one bomb in Manchester which killed 22 innocents. Unwillingness to hypothetically kill 220,000 innocents with a nuke is not the issue which will swing votes in this election
Surely that is the principle of deterrence. That you are threatening to use it in retaliation, after deterrence has failed?
Does being "armed" actually mean anything for a nuclear device?
Like you say, the main concern would be additional fallout by spreading around uranium/plutonium from the warheads of the other bombs. A minor concern, given the circumstances.
From what I've read in the past, there are various states of 'armed'. Where possible, the fissile material is kept separate from the rest of the bomb (obviously impossible to do on an SSBN). Then there are multiple, redundant triggers designed to prevent erroneous signals from initiating the weapon.
The deep, dank recesses of my memory contain a story that in one broken arrow accident (? Palomores ?), all bar one failsafe failed when the bomb hit the ground. The Yanks were so concerned that there might have been an accidental explosion that they contacted the Russians about it, and both agreed to design better triggers.
Yet a quick Google doesn't bring it up. Hmmmm.
Expunged from the record?
I guess you could have a situation where the critical mass is achieved accidentally, without the detonation of the conventional explosives. You'd have to be pretty unlucky though.
Saying that, I wonder if they have ever detonated two nukes at once to simulate it?
You probably wouldn't need two nukes; just one nuke and the innards of another sans fissile material. Although I'm unsure how you'd retrieve data from the experiment (perhaps marker material?)
The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.
Wow, sounds as though it was in the stages of going off normally! Blimey.
FPT: just skimming, but glad to see Mr. Pulpstar say the worm has gone. That was one of the worst aspects of debates.
Also, I have a betting question: at this stage, are the odds on ye olde bookies like Ladbrokes effectively set by book-balancing? ie driven by weight of money rather than determined by the actual chances of a given event occurring.
Mr Dancer, ye olde bookmaker sets and changes his odds in order to maximise his profit, same as any other businessman.
This is exactly what isam has been arguing, that polls only pick up the politically engaged. I think it makes more sesnse thesimply saying "oh they are overweighting the young's liklihood to turnout" when we know Corbyn enthuses this group like no leader before. I think they will increase their turnout and therefore Labour's share of the vote (doesn't mean to say that increase will be efficient ofcourse).
Middle aged women have gone from loving May to apperenly loving Corbyn, now there are good reasons for this but you would have to be a close political follower to know why.
Although the good news for Labour is the more political anoraks are likely to turnout more, even if the shift is exaggerated.
Now we just need to find proof this is what is driving the surge or is there a labour surge amongst the less avid political followeres. Since they don't do polls I'm not sure how to measure this......
Mr. Schards, indeed. The exit poll might be something of a surprise.
Currently quite comfortable with my bets on Con seats 350-399. Also worth noting that YouGov really is out of whack with the polls generally. There's a little 6-8 cluster (one below at 5), a double-digit cluster, and then gloomy YouGov.
Of course, if they're right they'll look very clever, but if not, YouGov are going to look rather silly.
IMPORTANT ACCOUNT INFORMATION Having reviewed your account, we are notifying you that your account will not be eligible for Betfair Sportsbook promotions, including Best Odds Guaranteed, in future.
We can assure you that this decision has only be taken after careful consideration and that it does not affect your ability to play on the Betfair Exchange and Betfair Gaming channels.
I've never even used any of their sportsbook promos. Unless you count their Tory price on Dumfries and Galloway as a promotion.
I've done it, I've put down cash on Tory majority because 1.24 is frikin ludicrous.
If you believe the Mori (SNP, Plaid combined on 3%) and Yougov polls Scotland could be crucial to May having a majority. Any switch from May to Corbyn detected?
Mr. Sandpit, yes, but what I mean is that, initially, a bookie sets odds according to what they think, whereas at some stage they may well change them not due to a shift in opinion but because of weight of money. I was just wondering how/when that happens.
1) There are people in this country that are happy to drop a bomb and kill millions of innocent people. 2) If your not prepared to kill millions of innocent people then your fit to be PM.
If anyone pressed the nuclear button we would all be dead.
I'm in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament but when I read such nonsense partisan posts I have an urge to obliterate the entire planet with H bombs in the hope that in 65 million years or so we might get some intelligent life.
The concept of nuclear deterrence (which belongs to a bygone age in my opinion) is that state actors with nuclear technology will be deterred from using it by the credible threat that another nuclear power is also willing to use it. It breaks down because first it assumes that nuclear technology is inevitably exclusively going to be in the hands of state actors and secondly it assumes those state actors have a minimum level of rationality. But those advocating it aren't genocidal maniacs. Far from seeking nuclear obliteration, they are trying by their words now to prevent precisely what appals you from being carried out by others.
As Donald Trump is discovering with N Korea. They are more bonkers than he is and aren't amenable to threats.
Nuclear weapons are vastly more powerful, but it's a matter of degree. The bomb (MOAB) used in Afghanistan was conventional.
Let's all agree .... war is bad. Let's put it on a placard and have a demo - that will bring IS to its senses.
How about we question peoples willingness and thirst for committing murder by killing innocent people.
What use is that? Do you think Putin or Assad or Kim or ISIS give a damn about 'questioning'? International relations aren't a fucking seminar.
Question. It's 1938. Hitler stands at the gates to Czechoslovakia, demanding unification with the Sudentenland. You agree a chat. What do you say?
You think because I refuse to drop a nuclear weapon on innocent people that I wouldn't use other weapons? No.
As stated already, the defence industry has so much advanced technology in the pipeline and in service that the nuclear bomb would never be needed because you can use technology to kill people that you need to kill. You don't need a nuclear bomb under any circumstances
Oh, so you are happy to see innocent civilians killed by airburst shrapnel are you?
And, forgive me, but "the defence industry has so much advanced technology in the pipeline..." is one of those claims where you think, the more likely the poster is to really know this stuff, the less likely he would be to rabbit on about it on the interweb. Plus it really isn't about advanced technology, it's about energy pure and simple, and claiming to get the same energy yield out of conventional as nuclear is like claiming to have cracked perpetual motion.
Hmm...not completely convinced by this thread header. Nature abhors a vacuum and the Great British public do not like a walk over. They have tried to create a viable opposition from the extremely poor material available and made a half decent fist of it.
The Tory party likes people who win. They even put up with Cameron as long as he won despite his views on Europe. If May wins the stunning ineptitude of this campaign will be largely forgotten and wholly forgiven. If she does not win she is toast.
My guess remains that she will win enough. Not the landslide once thought, the 2022 election will no longer be decided in this election with Labour out of sight, but a solid win none the less. I now think the Tories will end up with about 370 seats, a majority of 90. That will do. Labour just above 200, the SNP at 47/48 and the Lib Dems still at 8 or thereby.
An ideal result would be for the Tories to have a majority of 12, with Labour making a small net seat gain.
This is exactly what isam has been arguing, that polls only pick up the politically engaged. I think it makes more sesnse thesimply saying "oh they are overweighting the young's liklihood to turnout" when we know Corbyn enthuses this group like no leader before. I think they will increase their turnout and therefore Labour's share of the vote (doesn't mean to say that increase will be efficient ofcourse).
Middle aged women have gone from loving May to apperenly loving Corbyn, now there are good reasons for this but you would have to be a close political follower to know why.
Although the good news for Labour is the more political anoraks are likely to turnout more, even if the shift is exaggerated.
Now we just need to find proof this is what is driving the surge or is there a labour surge amongst the less avid political followeres. Since they don't do polls I'm not sure how to measure this......
It is not that May lovers have started loving Corbyn. They are becoming less ardent in their affections though. The Labour surge has happened while the Tory share has remained within MOE. It has occurred by squeezing other left wing parties, and also the previous non voters. There is the big question as to whether these will turn out on the day, but they have done so for other populist movements recently. We will know on Friday, but this is the first election in which I have overhead conversations in the office and waiting room over any leader, and it is all about Corbyn, and positive too.
Hmm...not completely convinced by this thread header. Nature abhors a vacuum and the Great British public do not like a walk over. They have tried to create a viable opposition from the extremely poor material available and made a half decent fist of it.
The Tory party likes people who win. They even put up with Cameron as long as he won despite his views on Europe. If May wins the stunning ineptitude of this campaign will be largely forgotten and wholly forgiven. If she does not win she is toast.
My guess remains that she will win enough. Not the landslide once thought, the 2022 election will no longer be decided in this election with Labour out of sight, but a solid win none the less. I now think the Tories will end up with about 370 seats, a majority of 90. That will do. Labour just above 200, the SNP at 47/48 and the Lib Dems still at 8 or thereby.
An ideal result would be for the Tories to have a majority of 12, with Labour making a small net seat gain.
Comments
Secondly two of my family are teachers of what I still call the Upper Sixth, and told me those of their classes who can vote are a) strongly for Labour and b) definitely going to vote. And that applies to the junior members (in their 20’s) of my family. I’ve also never seen them as fired up about it.
Murder is a capital one offence. You could commit that crime.
Your fall-back is internet panels.
Doubly screwed.
But nukes (particularly hydrogen bombs) are finiticky things to get to explode. I would think most problems would occur from radioactive material being strewn about, and that'd probably be minor compared to the actual fallout from the main weapon.
Personally, biological weapons concern me much more than nukes. They have the same capability of killing, and might be much easier to make and harder to defend against.
On a medium term basis, I can easily believe that GDP will be lower under Brexit. But I'm more focused on GDP per capita for the C2/D segment of the population. If that comes at the cost of A/Bs living in London I'm fine with that.
This is not about deterring people. This about us as individuals. Do we as individuals have the capability and willingness to kill innocent people that have done nothing wrong and to shrug your shoulders and say "people die in wars" is just not good enough.
A nuclear bomb kills millions of people and anyone willing to use is committing first degree murder a million times over because there is never a just cause to use it.
You are a deluded fool. As is Corbyn.
Panels are inevitably going to be unrepresentative in some ways. But we don't know whether those ways matter.
Like you say, the main concern would be additional fallout by spreading around uranium/plutonium from the warheads of the other bombs. A minor concern, given the circumstances.
It's all been done before. In 1945, Harry had that decision to make. They prepared a million body-bags for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Other options? Only one really. Let Stailn's divisions over-run China and Korea and the death toll of innocents would be much higher.
Moral absolutes are easy but may lead to more deaths.
By comparison, the deterrence theory has much to recommend it.
I was challenged to come up with a scenario where I as Prime Minister/President would use a nuke. Whilst the idea of their use is utterly repugnant, there are limited circumstances where I would use them to protect life and protect our way of life. Imagine if those ten cities were lost - ignore the loss of life, just the loss to our culture would be immense.
And oddly, as a Conservative I am quite a lonely voice in being no fan of Trident. It is because there are so few instances where it could viably be used that I believe the money could be better spent to keep us all safer.
Mr. Observer, if a precise location were known, I imagine it'd be peppered with tungsten rods.
Edited extra bit: or conventional bombs/missiles, of course.
You don't need nuclear weapons to defend a country. Did it stop Manchester? London?
The US could atom bomb Japan without much concern precisely because Japan *didn't* have nukes. Pearl Harbor has nothing to do with it (other than in a historical context).
For most of tbe Cold War the Warsaw Pact had an apparently overwhelming conventional army and airforce that would in theory be able to wipe out NATO ground forces in a matter of days. This is why we had a first use policy, because we knew we could not hold out without unleashing radioactive carnage on the world.
Such a war with Russia is now inconceivable. Russia is much weaker now, and sufficiently friendly that we let Russians linked closely to their government to buy up property in London, including football clubs and newspapers. We even let them interfere in our elections with only mild annoyance.
Nuclear deterrence was always about being too weak conventionally to fight. It now so distorts defence spending that we have the ability to destroy Moscow from under the ocean, but have two carriers without planes, one of which will be immediately mothballed, Destroyers with elecctrics more unreliable than BA's IT upgrade, and cannot deploy more than a single battle strength brigade.
Non state actors with nukes would not be deterred by MAD, and small states like Iran or NK are threats only to their neighbours. Who do we aim our nukes at? They are simply obselete and distort defence policy.
MAD is the strategy of the Manchester Bomber gone global. You have attacked and destroyed that which I hold dear, so I will massacre your women and children. Nukes are only used when you have already lost, and intend to take the rest of the world with you. They are immoral, obselete and dangerous.
Would you support the pm being arrested for murder and if they used a nuclear bomb?
Governments are not individuals.
I'm not sure a clearcut situation like that can ever arise, or at least the chances are vanishingly small (see also Yes, Prime Minister)
Let's all agree .... war is bad. Let's put it on a placard and have a demo - that will bring IS to its senses.
What a wonderful world we live in.
The Tory party likes people who win. They even put up with Cameron as long as he won despite his views on Europe. If May wins the stunning ineptitude of this campaign will be largely forgotten and wholly forgiven. If she does not win she is toast.
My guess remains that she will win enough. Not the landslide once thought, the 2022 election will no longer be decided in this election with Labour out of sight, but a solid win none the less. I now think the Tories will end up with about 370 seats, a majority of 90. That will do. Labour just above 200, the SNP at 47/48 and the Lib Dems still at 8 or thereby.
Oh, and the BA's recent failure does not appear to have been caused by an IT upgrade, although details are annoyingly sketchy atm. It might be something much simpler and worrying for BA.
Could you actually try to write something containing facts?
IMPORTANT ACCOUNT INFORMATION
Having reviewed your account, we are notifying you that your account will not be eligible for Betfair Sportsbook promotions, including Best Odds Guaranteed, in future.
We can assure you that this decision has only be taken after careful consideration and that it does not affect your ability to play on the Betfair Exchange and Betfair Gaming channels.
I've never even used any of their sportsbook promos. Unless you count their Tory price on Dumfries and Galloway as a promotion.
It's that kind of idealistic naivety that leads people to think Communism can work.
Honestly! Its respect for human life. Question your human soul; that you can kill innocent people and sleep comfortably.
* Proper authority and public declaration [it's proper authority that distinguishes war from murder]
* Just cause / right intention
* Probability of success
* Proportionality
* Last resort
It is difficult to construct a scenario when these criteria would be met (it's probability of success that I struggle most with) but not impossible
The principle of proportionality explicitly allows for the killing of civilians provided that it is not the primary objective of the action
Question. It's 1938. Hitler stands at the gates to Czechoslovakia, demanding unification with the Sudentenland. You agree a chat. What do you say?
MAD depended on people believing that the other side would use it if they were attacked, no matter what the moral principles involved. Fortunately, evil people tend to believe that other people are evil too, so it worked.
It may not work against IS because death is fine with them. But who knows what other threats may arise. The Kims in North Korea may be evil but they are rational too. And who knows what other threats may arise in the near future.
Actually, I'm not too sure why the Germans didn't use gas, if not against the Allies in the west then against the Soviets, against whom they were fighting a war of annihilation.
The deep, dank recesses of my memory contain a story that in one broken arrow accident (?
Palomores ?), all bar one failsafe failed when the bomb hit the ground. The Yanks were so concerned that there might have been an accidental explosion that they contacted the Russians about it, and both agreed to design better triggers.
Yet a quick Google doesn't bring it up. Hmmmm.
It's not a question of wanting nuclear war. Fear of retaliation would help prevent that. No nukes, no fear of retaliation.
The atomic raids were justified and, as such, given the technology available, necessary.
As stated already, the defence industry has so much advanced technology in the pipeline and in service that the nuclear bomb would never be needed because you can use technology to kill people that you need to kill. You don't need a nuclear bomb under any circumstances
I guess you could have a situation where the critical mass is achieved accidentally, without the detonation of the conventional explosives. You'd have to be pretty unlucky though.
Saying that, I wonder if they have ever detonated two nukes at once to simulate it?
We've seen how Momentum have gamed Union elections, the Labour leadership election and audiences for Question Time and the BBC debate programmes. Is it possible that they are gaming the polls too somehow, or at least having their members on alert to accept any invitation to any survey on the chance that it's a political poll? They are clearly more motivated than any other organisation and have been successful elsewhere.
I just can't believe that if there was such a rise in Labour support, Labour canvassers wouldn't be detecting it and shouting about it all over social media
*(In real life of course it is trivial but in the whacky world of advertising/marketing it really isn't)
Really? How about chemical or biological weapons? Indiscriminate and a horrible way to go. But that 's OK, because it's not nasty nuclear.
A MIRVed missile is no use against a single target - unless you target all the warheads on the same target. What we need is what we don't have - gravity bombs and cruise missiles. It's those nukes which would deter the kind of threat we face, and instead of building some we have to renew the doomsday machines which literally serve no military purpose.
Anyway, the number of people in the country having this debate is us and only us. The people of this country have pulled together and lit candles in defiance against one bomb in Manchester which killed 22 innocents. Unwillingness to hypothetically kill 220,000 innocents with a nuke is not the issue which will swing votes in this election
Oh, and this was the case I was thinking of:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961
The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.
Middle aged women have gone from loving May to apperenly loving Corbyn, now there are good reasons for this but you would have to be a close political follower to know why.
Although the good news for Labour is the more political anoraks are likely to turnout more, even if the shift is exaggerated.
Now we just need to find proof this is what is driving the surge or is there a labour surge amongst the less avid political followeres. Since they don't do polls I'm not sure how to measure this......
Currently quite comfortable with my bets on Con seats 350-399. Also worth noting that YouGov really is out of whack with the polls generally. There's a little 6-8 cluster (one below at 5), a double-digit cluster, and then gloomy YouGov.
Of course, if they're right they'll look very clever, but if not, YouGov are going to look rather silly.
Let that sink in.
And, forgive me, but "the defence industry has so much advanced technology in the pipeline..." is one of those claims where you think, the more likely the poster is to really know this stuff, the less likely he would be to rabbit on about it on the interweb. Plus it really isn't about advanced technology, it's about energy pure and simple, and claiming to get the same energy yield out of conventional as nuclear is like claiming to have cracked perpetual motion.
....