Gordon Brown

From what I heard of his mansion house speech last night (for whatever
reason) Mr Brown threw his personal weight behind replacement of the trident
nuclear deterrent. I wonder did he mention the north south high speed line?

>
> "The Chancellor knows that in a forthcoming leadership election,
> Blairites such as Milburn, Reid and Byers will try to paint him as a
> closet leftie. And so he has looked for a defining issue to show he
> will not revert to Old Labour ways."

I don't know why they bother, much better to paint him as an out of the
closet Scot.

That should do the trick.

"David Haggas" <DavidHaggas@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:FvSdnYltU5dBxwfZRVnyjQ@bt.com...
> From what I heard of his mansion house speech last night (for whatever
> reason) Mr Brown threw his personal weight behind replacement of the
> trident nuclear deterrent. I wonder did he mention the north south high
> speed line?

Ah yes, but the military form of Keynesianism has always been that favoured
by successive governments - never mind that the so-called deterrent isn't
even independent, and the whole exercise benefits the everyday business of
ordinary folk not one jot.

--
Tim

Selective killfiling - because life's too short

Tony Polson wrote:
>
> Personally, I am 100% anti Britain having nuclear weapons, but an
> advocate would surely argue that they have protected 100% of the
> population against a world war for the last 50 years, and continue to
> do so.

There is no evidence for this, since we cannot know what would have
happened with no nuclear weapon.

You could equally state that the lack of a World War is because of the
presence of helicopters (which came about at around the same time).

Alternatively you could say that nuclear weapons have prevented us being
invaded by Aliens (since that hasn't happened either).

Presence of object and absence of event does *not* mean that the object
prevented the event.


--
Just because I've written it doesn't mean that
either you or I have to believe it.

Charlie Hulme wrote:
> Ross wrote:
>
> >
> > So, I think it reasonable that the USSR would have invaded Britain to
> > deny the USA the ability to use as a forward base the smoking remnants
> >[*] of Britain which survived any such war.
> >
>
> Well, thanks to everyone who has retrospectively tried to convince me,
> but all the same I never believed at the time that the USSR would invade
> Britain.
>
> "They" had nuclear bombs pointed at us, "we" had nuclear bombs pointed
> at them. The biggest threat to Britain would have been as a response
> to a "pre-emptive" strike on the USSR by the USA, which I understand
> US generals recommended to Kennedy.
>
> Charlie


Plenty of former Red Army and Air Force Generals happy to talk about it
now, one scenario saw an airborne operation followed by a sea borne
force and this as a prelude to an advance on Western Europe.

Chris Tolley wrote:
> Charlie Hulme wrote:
>
> If you had been a regular on the trains from Tilbury Riverside, you
> might have suspected they already had. British Rail even had some
> posters in Russian.
>

Someone else who remembers this! Saw it in the late 60s (at the ferry
wharf rather than on the station. Can't remember what it said, though
....

Mike