Chris Huhne has announced he would seek to change our policy on Trident: to deciding now to scrap it in a few years time, rather that waiting until a decision on an upgrade actually becomes necessary.
Chris is consistent ont his issue. He had precisely the same position in the 2006 leadership election.
But I think it is now a mistake.
Conference had a very full and frank debate about the Trident issue in Harrogate only six months ago. At the end of that debate there was a vote and a policy was democratically determined.
If we re-open it, the Harrogate debate will have been a complete waste of time. It seems to me basic that you do not, except where there has been a significant change of circumstances, take a decision and then go through the whole thing again a few months later.
If you start doing that there’s nothing to stop people re-opening every issue they fancy. The organisation will go round in tedious self-obsessed circles, losing support in every direction, and increasingly frozen in the ice of our own indecision and the voters’ indifference.
UPDATE: Nick Clegg has made comments that I interpret to be a commitment to the policy decided at Harrogate.
October 29, 2007 at 5:45 pm |
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