Scotland Aide Quits In Disgust

Shameless Scotland's bag-carrier has shown the way and quit in disgust as his spineless minister sticks it out and ducks the flak. The MP delivered a broadside on Bunkered Brown's woeful lack of leadership as much as over the shamed attorney general.

The Labour MP's bold bombshell has come like a breath of fresh air in the shabby Westminster word of back-scratching.

Hesford, unpaid aide to an elected minister as well as unelected Scotland, says in his letter of resignation that he "cannot support the decision which allows her to remain in office," winning a round of applause around the land.

Shamed and shameless Scotland is still hiding behind a smokescreen despite breaking the law and handed a £5,000 fine over employing an illegal immigrant. And making a complete pig's ear trying to wriggle out of it.

In the letter, which apparently caught Blinkered Brown on the hop, Hesford says: "In my view the facts of the case do not matter. It is the principle which counts, particularly at a time when the publics' trust of Whitehall is uncertain to say the least. We have to be seen to be accountable." Quite.

Resignations of ministerial bag-carriers are now part and parcel of a fag-end government. Lower down the pecking order, they're not fully paid up members in the New Labour crony loop.

But the resignation letter speaks volumes about the current mood of backbench MPs. It's the issue of Bumbling Brown and the vexed question of his lack of leadership which caught the eye of the Orange Party.

"Could I just mention matters of policy where I believe leadership is vital," prime minister. Ouch.

"Generally, I would urge you to move as quickly as possible to withdraw from Afghanistan and to signal a change in our position over Trident replacement."

Hesford is blowing with the wind. Storm clouds are gathering ahead of next week's leaving Party conference. Backbench MPs are not happy bunnies. Scotland it seems was the last straw.

Useless Brown's empty gestures about maybe cutting the odd Trident sub doesn't cut any ice. His unwinnable Afghan war has become a shameful, bloody legacy.

As the Orange Party poignantly posted yesterday, shamed and shameless Scotland should do Macavity Brown a big favour and quit to save him more embarrassment.

Instead, not only the struggling Supreme Leader's bunkered support for Shameless Scotland but the whole issue of his lamentable leadership is back festering away in the spotlight.

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Living In Brown's Yellow Submarine

Blustering Brown has sunk to new depths offering up a Trident sub as a fig leaf to make him feel important. Strutting aimlessly alone saving the world, the empty gesture is as much use as a coal-fired sub. It takes a leader with guts to scrap Trident, not a spineless posturing has-been living in a Yellow Submarine.

Coming up with a cunning plan, the wannabe commander-in-chief is to tell the UN he is willing to cut the number of Trident missile-carrying subs from four to three, a day after being anointed smug saviour of the world.

Only he's not a presidential head of state. Billy-no-mates Brown is a two-bit prime minister of a fag-end government, snubbed by Obama and set to be out on his ears in a few months time. Only ordering some poor soul to press the button is in his gift, for the time being.

The struggling Supreme Leader is thinking about, maybe, perhaps, getting rid of one sub - when three can easily do the job of blowing up the world.

Pseudo-liberals seem blissfully content looking for the 'sky of blue and sea of green', welcoming the move as some first faltering step towards scrapping Trident or the road to unilateral nuclear disarmament. This is nothing of the sort. This is empty gesture politics.

If deluded Brown thinks this will appease the Party Left or steal a march on political rivals, he's living in a Yellow Submarine. One of the best things about iTunes is you can delete all the Ringo rubbish from Beatles albums.

Scrapping one of four subs doesn't save 25%. More cash would have to be spent on maintaining the overall 'deterrent' capability of the remaining fleet. One sub is always out of action anyway for maintenance. The new breed of subs would be quite capable of taking up the slack after scrapping the spare.

You can't play football on deck so what do these guys on nuclear subs do all day apart from skulking around 'deterring' and watching Das Boot on DVD?

Captains have to read doomed Brown's droning drivel in a "by the time your reading this letter" before they can press the button. Maybe that's what's needed to tip them over the edge?

At the beginning of the year, with a warning of things to come, ex-generals thundered in The Times branding the Trident missile system completely useless and the £20 billion replacing it a waste of money, particularly in the current economic crisis.

With the new Vietnam looming in Afghanistan, they argued that rather than spending £20 billion renewing Trident, more should be spent on the armed forces.

"Nuclear weapons," they said, "have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of the violence we currently face, or are likely to face - particularly international terrorism."

But hey, what do tin-pot generals know? With hindsight, it seems quite a lot.

Replacing Trident was one of war-mongering Blair's legacy leaving presents, giving the go-ahead to replace the system with a brand spanking new US baby, now heartily backed by Blinkered Brown.

Once again it raises the thorny question: what's independent or a deterrent about the UK's independent nuclear deterrent?

There's nothing independent about the UK's reliance on a US system with politicians quite willing to sell their souls to the US arms trade.

Trident has only one mission and that's to get a seat on the UN security council top table. It's a lot of money to fork out to join the big boys club. Whether it's three subs or four makes no difference to Iran or to the nuclear arm race.

Trident and the whole US-owned submarine missile system is a Cold War legacy. It is not a weapon for now, where the direct threat to the UK comes from home grown radical Islam.

The case for and against Trident will no doubt rage on, ad nauseam. The arguments are purely political rather than military.

With an empty UN gesture, Bottling Brown has kicked the Trident political football back into touch.

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Forced To Live With Useless Trident

Ex-generals have branded the Trident missile system completely useless and the £20 billion replacing it a waste of money, particularly with the economic crisis. That won't make a blind bit of difference but two cheers for trying.

As the generals denounce Trident as irrelevant, it would take a brave political leader to have the guts to scrap it. 

In an attack that wouldn't be out of place from the so-called lefties (and the Orange Party for that matter) the ex-generals have rounded on the money spent on the UK's nuclear submarine system, arguing that rather than spending £20 billion renewing Trident, more should be spent on the armed forces. 

Replacing Trident was one of Blair's legacy leaving presents, giving the go-ahead to replace the system in 2006. Now heartily backed by Brown he's probably already written his "by the time you're reading this" letter to nuclear submarine captains.

The Trident system of submarines, missiles and warheads still has a lot of life left in it, not due end until the 2020s and could be upgraded and patched up, rather than replaced with a brand spanking new US baby. 

Retired generals have a habit of speaking sense, in the past rounding on the utterly futile and hugely expensive military debacle of trying to fight wars on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Their views of course come from a military perspective. But what other view should be taken, apart from politicians quite willing to sell their souls  to the US arms trade? 

Once again it begs the question what's independent or a deterrent about the UK's independent nuclear deterrent? Their argument points out there's nothing independent about the UK's reliance on a US system, we only keep it going to get a seat on the UN security council and it makes no difference to the current nuclear arm race. 

In a letter to the Times, Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Generals Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach say Trident is "irrelevant" and write: "Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of the violence we currently face, or are likely to face - particularly international terrorism."

"Rather than perpetuating Trident, the case is much stronger for funding our armed forces with what they need to meet the commitments actually laid upon them. In the present economic climate it may well prove impossible to afford both."

In these hard economic times, £20 billion of our cash is a lot to fork out for seat on the top table of the UN security council. 

Trident and the whole US-owned submarine missile system is a Cold War legacy weapon. It is not a weapon for the situation we are in now, where the direct threat to the UK comes from fundamental Islam.  

The case for and against Trident will no doubt rage on, ad nauseam but when the views of these generals are taken into account, the arguments are indeed purely political rather than military.

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Disgraceful Sneaky Aldermaston Sell-Off

Arrogant government ministers have put two fingers up to parliament, slipping out the sneaky fire sale of the UK's nuclear bomb factory as a crafty way of boosting treasury coffers and bypassing MPs. 

Opposition MPs are furious over the secret sale which makes a mockery of any claim the UK has an 'independent' nuclear deterrent.

The government is tight-lipped over how much it got for its stake in the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), as news of the sale slipped out just before parliament broke up for the long Christmas hols.

The sale to a US firm was announced in a single one-paragraph statement posted here on the firm's website:

"BNFL is delighted to confirm that it has today agreed the sale of its one third shareholding in AWE Management Limited to the Jacobs Engineering Group".

This underhand behaviour from the government is a disgrace. The fact that something of such strategic importance could happen without a by-your-leave to parliament beggars belief. 

Opposition MPs are furious, accusing the government of burying the sale. And there's anger the UK would no longer control the site where controversial Trident nuclear warheads are produced, maintained and due to be replaced.

The sale means we no longer have any stake in the production of our own Trident nuclear warheads. The other two thirds of AWE were already in private hands, split between American defence giant, Lockheed Martin and the UK firm, Serco.

There are concerns too that this was a knock-down sale at below the market price and is the thin end of the wedge, as the government steams ahead with sell-off sales to claw-back some cash in the face of a recession borrowing binge.

Other state assets ear-marked for quickie sales include Ordnance Survey, Met Office  and Forestry Commission. 

As with the planned part-privatisation of Royal Mail, these sales have the paw prints of deputy prime minister, Mandleson, all over them.

And, like the sale of Royal Mail, the whole issue of back-door privatisation and indeed the hugely expensive and morally corrupt Trident missile programme are dear to the hearts of the Orange Party and many backbench Labour MPs and trade unions.

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