Vince Cable on Nuclear Weapons

Vince Cable: It has become commonplace to talk about the climate crisis as
the greatest threat to the planet. It is certainly right to focus on an
existential issue which we can do something about. But I fear there are
other problems which could – at very short notice – prove even more
pressing. Pandemics we know about. But the risks around nuclear war and
weapons proliferation have slipped out of public consciousness. They
mustn’t. My awareness of this set of issues was triggered by two things.
The first was the reappearance of Little Rocket Man in North Korea. He
seems to have been slimming his own girth but increasing his nuclear
capability. The country has been developing a cruise missile described as
“strategic” and capable of delivering nuclear weapons around 1000 miles
– to Japan as well as South Korea and to US bases and aircraft carriers.
North Korea is also reported to have restarted a nuclear power station
capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. I am also one of the millions
gripped by Vigil on BBC on Sunday evening. Like Line of Duty, its
predecessor series, the plot doesn’t bear too much analysis. But, in a
very compelling way, it brings to life something we have rather taken for
granted: the fact that, operating out of a base in Argyll in Scotland,
there is a fleet of submarines carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent –
one of which is continually patrolling at sea.

 Independent 14th Sept 2021

 https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nuclear-war-north-korea-china-vigil-b1919912.html