I was trying to think of a pun about compasses but couldn't

Ever one to engage in dialogue with the left and/or a glutton for punishment I trekked to Westminster Central Hall today for the Compass Conference at the invitation of CND, whose opponent of choice in debates I seem to have become.

I arrived in time to catch the end of Ken Livingstone's plenary speech - the bit I heard was eminently sensible stuff about tackling climate change through city-level measures.

The CND fringe was supposed to be about future opportunities for disarmament and fulfilling our Non Proliferation Treaty obligations, but I guess inevitably got dragged back onto the recent Trident replacement decision. My opponent was Jon Trickett MP, Chair of the Compass Group of MPs. He seems to be calling for another vote on Trident as early as 2 years' time - i.e. between the concept and design phases - can't see Gordon being up for that in what could be a General Election year, somehow. Rather than keep trying to reopen a vote they lost, I don't understand why Trickett & co don't use their energy to push Ministers to be more proactive in kick-starting multilateral disarmament talks, or leading efforts to get nuclear free regions in places where there is a danger of conflict such as South Asia and the Middle East - which would be policies that would not only be more likely to be adopted by the Government, they would be likely to have a bigger impact on global disarmament than unilateral non-replacement of Trident.

I bumped into and had a friendly welcome from Compass Chair Neal Lawson, which was kind of him given that I'm not a fan of his current political project, and also saw Francis Prideaux of CLPD and fellow Labour bloggers Tom of http://newerlabour.blogspot.com/ and Peter Kenyon (http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/). There were even a few people who I hadn't seen since LCC days who may have thought I was there as a Compassite ...

I didn't stay for the video address from Cruddas, but if Neal wants me back next year for a broader debate on Party matters, I might well accept the invitation ...