Strength and Weakness in leadership

The Defence Secretary, tries to label Labour & Miliband as weak on defence alleging that Labour would not replace Trident. Due to the unnecessary and scurrilous allegations made, the issues surrounding Trident are lost in the noise and the debate becomes one of character, which Miliband wins again!

  1. The New Statesman finishes the day, with the headline, "...attack backfires, leaving Miliband to emerge as the decent man."
  2. It was going wrong, when the Spectator asks how a Government or Party that won't commit to the NATO defence budget commitments (2% of GDP) can hope to criticise anyone, and also distance themselves; they quote Miliband's devasting riposte, "Decent Conservatives across our country will say – come on, we’re better than this. David Cameron should be ashamed,"
  3. Matt Burleigh summarises the hypocrisy in his blog detailing the Tory defence cuts since 2010 and retelling the story of the Tory's cuts in the 1980s which led to the Falklands War.
  4. The arguments on Trident are not clear, the Labour Party's National Policy Forum has not debated the issues and in the article below, Michael Meacher, sums up in one paragraph the critical arguments against Trident, while analysing Labour's leadership's caution.
  5. "The recent vote in the Commons, ... calling for the non-renewal of Trident brought out the same response. Labour recognises, and is sympathetic to, the downsides of continuing with Trident – the £130bn cost over a 50-year period, the uncertainty of being able to operate the system independently of the US, doubts about the relevance of such a weapon at such enormous cost against today’s challenges of terrorism and cyber-warfare – but will not take a stand against the conventional wisdom. That is even the case when an increasing proportion of the military top brass have come out against renewing Trident, especially when it means cutbacks in other areas of the military budget such as adequately arming and protecting UK troops in the field, as the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown all too starkly.
  6. I point out that a Tory Defence Secretary might not be the best person to look to apply the chisel to Labour given their record on defence spending both since 2010 and also in the '80s.
  7. The Tories in two minds as to the attack line, being Nukes or Miliband's character allow Michael Fallon to attack both in one go.
  8. This story took me a week to finish. The speech was given on the 9th April,