A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Hugh Gaitskell

My article about Hugh Gaitskell from the conference edition of Progress magazine:
http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2012/10/02/a-natural-hero/

posted by Luke Akehurst at 12:29 pm

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"If the party opts to debate the renewal of Trident, it will need similarly courageous voices to speak up for a strong defence policy."

A statement like that only serves to illustrate just how extreme Luke is in his support for nuclear weapons. He sees them as an indicator of being 'strong' on defence.

However, this view is firmly rejected by Tony Blair in his memoirs:

"I did not think this was a ‘tough on defence’ versus ‘weak on defence or pacifist’ issue at all."


And it is nonsense to claim that Britain's nuclear weapons are 'independent'. Blair acknowledges this too:

"It is true that it is frankly inconceivable we would use our nuclear deterrent (sic) alone, without the US."

The Labour Party does need to re-examine the Trident decision and I hope it will decide to cancel any planned successor.

10:44 am, October 04, 2012

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is always worth looking at counterfactual history. We learn that the actual outcome was not inevitable. And so we can gain a sense of our own power.

I am surprised that the counterfactual history books have not looked at Gaitskell.

I expect Luke's probably read the "What if?" type books. Very interesting reading.

10:31 am, October 06, 2012

 

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