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Comment by Janet King 7 hours ago

EDM 150 

to date 32 MPs have signed the EDM including the following Lib Dems, to whom we are very grateful.

Andrew George; Mike Hancock; Julian Huppert; John Leech; David Ward; Mark Williams and Simon Wright. 

I have not heard from anyone using this page as to whether they have heard from their own MP. Please post any results you get  - even negative - on this page. My own MP is Conservative and does not sign EDMs anyway (collective Gov responsibility is his reason - does this mean ministers stop having strong opinions??). I think this motion should form the basis of a policy motion for Conference.Would anyone like to help me write it,please before the end of June?

 

Comment by Janet King on June 7, 2013 at 18:37

EDM 150

On 21st May this cross-party EDM was launched by Jeremy Corbyn MP and sponsored by Julian Huppert MP amongst others. It asks that Trident should be taken out of service and not be replaced, a position SNTT completely endorses. We are grateful to those 25 MPs, who have signed the EDM, including 4 Lib Dems (Julian, Andrew George,Mike Hancock and David Ward).Please write to your MP to ask him/her to sign this important EDM, which will send a message to the Government prior to the publishing of the long awaited Alternatives Review.Most signatories are Labour and there is not a single Conservative name..We know who our friends are!

Comment by Janet King on May 29, 2013 at 16:24

The Financial Times has spilled the beans and is reporting today that the Trident Alternatives Review will say that any alternative to like for like replacement is too expensive or not effective enough. Well that is no surprise. We knew when Nick Harvey was sacked and safe hands Danny was installed that the review was doomed.However there appears to be a glimmer of hope. CASD could be examined to see whether there are savings (financial) to be made there. Taking the deadly subs out of the water would at least be a step in the right direction and was proposed in CentreForum's Dropping the Bomb. We shall have a job to do convincing our fellow Lib Dems that we do not have to take the Review's recommendations lying down.Ready for a struggle for peace?Get in touch and tell us what you think..

Comment by Janet King on May 29, 2013 at 15:42

What a surprise!!! On Sky website and in the Financial Times there is a report that Nick Harvey's (and now safe hands Danny Alexander's) Trident Alternatives Review is going to say that all alternatives to Trident are too expensive. Well I never. They have fforgotten that the obvious alternative - decommissioning Trident and making it into brooches (if safe enough) - might be much less costly.On the bright side, the review does suggest looking at the ending of CASD. At least that is a step in the right direction. I am longing to find out what The Guardian makes of the leaked Review, which is not due to be published until next month..Now we really must get Nick Harvey and Danny Alexander to a fringe at Glasgow to debate the whole issue. Along with a CND speaker and Peter Burt of NIS that would make for a great meeting.Anyone willing to organise?? Anyone willing to help to finance??

Comment by Joyce Yendole on May 29, 2013 at 12:47

This address has been much praised, and, now I’ve read it, I can understand why! – and I thought you might like to see it too. I thought you may not have automatically checked this out, ........ so here it is!

http://iona.org.uk/2013/05/22/churchofscotland/

Comment by Janet King on April 28, 2013 at 16:59

Last week Nick Harvey spoke out at the NPT 2015 Preparatory Conference against replacement of Trident calling it expensive and out dated.He is known to favour ending the CASD function where a fully armed and primed sub is continuously at sea. He (and we) do not see this as a necessary deterrent as Philip Hammond and cronies do. I suggest we invite Nick to speak at a fringe at Glasgow Conference but this will cost money. Is anyone prepared to put up £10 - we shall need approx 20 supporters and we can do it. Please contact myself or Martin Veart if you can help.

You can read about Nick's speech and more on the NIS (Nuclear Information Service) website. Cameron and Hammond of course believe that Trident is essential and cite the usual suspects, North Korea and Iran, as countries to be feared just as Blair chose Iraq as his bete noir. Why do they not accept that others believe that we are the problem (or at least part of it) with our defence expenditure of £39 billions pa, the world's 4th largest.

Comment by Janet King on April 25, 2013 at 11:16

Please look at the latest report from BASIC on the recent meeting in Brussels between Russia and NATO on the subject of nuclear weapons.www.basicint.org If anyone wants to be involved in organising something (not necessarily a fringe) at Glasgow Conference, would you please contact Janet (janet.king@libdemsbromsgrove.org.uk MARTIN, are you interested?

Comment by Janet King on March 22, 2013 at 21:24

Victoria (and everyone else who reads us), 

We do have a good idea who our friends are. Look at EDM 96 and see which of our Lib Dem MPs have signed - it is , of course, all the usual lovely, intelligent and wise suspects.There are 96 signatures to date - I expectmore will get roud to signing but the Cons are notable by their absence. I have to say that there are only 2 possible parties if we want to become a non-nuclear member of the majority in this world. I would back a Lib-Lab co-alition next time but the problem is they always let us down.Can we trust them to work with us rather than against us? Maybe they have learnt from their ghastly mistakes in the Blair years? Remember it was only the Lib Dem MPs who voted against Trident replacement.in 2007.but maybe it's a vote winner now.

Comment by Janet King on February 15, 2013 at 13:49

Just returned from New Zealand, the most peaceful country on Earth, where discussion rarely turns to nuclear weapons -why should it? They are not even involved in nuclear power for peaceful purposes as they have so much hydro electricity. Lucky them. However this is not so much to sing the praises of NZ as to explain why I did not reply more promptly to your last post, Victoria. The short answer is that we do not have an updated list of MPs' support or otherwise for non replacement of Trident.We do need to ask them again especially as this is the yrea when we can expect to see the preparation of new party policies for the 2015 manifesto. I'll ask Gareth Epps, one of our contacts on FPC, whether their defence cttee has carried out a survey and if not I suggest we do one of our own. There is likely to be more support for no like for like replacement than no replacement at all, which is what some of us would prefer. I do know that amongst our greatest supporters at Westminster are Tessa MuntMP and the lovely Julian Huppert MP.For Cabinet members I suspect that no replacement is a step too far as it may be for the majority of MPs but that is mere speculation so let's find out. Watch this space and if you know how your own LD MP would vote on this issue, please let us know. Martin, any thoughts???

 

By the way - different topic but we have just heard that the CND protesters whose coach was sent back to London from RAF Fairford in 2009 have won their case against the police. See RAF Fairford protesters win legal battle

 

http://civilisation3000.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/raf-fairford-prote...

 

 

Comment by victoria lubbock on February 1, 2013 at 0:08

Apologies if I've missed it in amongst these threads, but does our membership yet know the position of each of our MPs/LibDem Peers on the Triden issue? I see the idea of a questionnaire came up ...

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