John Hutton seems to be making a comeback these days, after leaving his position as Defence Secretary for 'family reasons' and announcing he was standing down at the next election. He has started speaking at private dinners for the law firm Eversheds, but turned down a post with EDF Energy, the British arm of the French state-controlled nuclear energy company.
He has warned Gordon Brown that it would be "daft" to scrap the Trident Nuclear weapons system and predicted that his plans to scale it back will not save much money.
Mr Brown has announced his intention to reduce the number of submarines from four to three. Some senior Labour figures are urging him to go further by scrapping plans to modernise what critics describe as a 'Cold War relic', with the savings divided between cutting the national debt and higher spending on equipment for frontline troops.
Mr Hutton is "not convinced" by Mr Brown's proposal to cut the number of submarines, saying that four subs are needed to ensure that one boat always remains at sea. Instead he believes Britain should offer to reduce the number of warheads at global disarmament talks next spring.
Mr Hutton's stance was influenced partly by his being MP for Barrow-in-Furnace, where the new Trident submarines would be built. He said Britain should not relegate itself from the "premier league" in defence engineering, as once skills were lost they would never come back.
It will be interesting to see if Gordon Brown listens, he doesn't listen when the people of Scotland say they don't want nuclear weapons in their country.
Source: The Independent
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