I know it's probably quite dull to everyone, but I'm still baffled by the whole thing. The Lib Dems are now apparently advocating downgrading it from 4 subs to 2 and removing the need for a permanent at sea nuclear deterrent. So we'd get most of the cost anyway with a poorer service. Great.

I still don't see why we can't just ditch it completely.

Philip Hammond, defence secretary, on the Today programme was saying that having our own independent nuclear deterrent has served us well over the last forty years or so.

Can anyone point at a state of broadly similar world economic standing that doesn't have or hasn't had an independent nuclear deterrent where they have at any point said "oh shit, we could really have done with a nuclear deterrent here"? I mean, how has it served us well, what has it prevented from happening that has happened to someone else?

Anyway, yawn