One of the guests was Lord
West, or to give him his full title, Admiral Alan William John West, Baron West
of Spithead, GCB, DSC, PC. He is of course a retired senior officer of the Royal Navy
and formerly, from June 2007 to May 2010, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the UK Home Office with responsibility for security and a security advisor to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Prior to his ministerial appointment, he
was First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff
from 2002 to 2006. He is the current Chancellor of Southampton Solent University.
So you would think someone of that
standing would be a well thought out sensible chap.
Well, let me recount what happened
in the phone in. One minute Lord West said that he would use nuclear weapons first
to stop a war if he felt we were losing and would, to use his words, “advise
the government to use nuclear weapons to stop a defeat”. That sounds very like first strike to me.
But the next minute he says “it’s
not a first strike weapon”. Confused? I am. He can't have it both ways.
But here’s the thing, such
confused and worrying thinking was at the heart of our nations response on
matters military for much of the last decade.
One does wonder how some people get such top jobs when they, in the space
of three minutes on live radio, can make such a complete road crash of an interview.
Mind you, he has form. In November 2007 he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that he was not "totally convinced" of the need
for 42-day detention (without trial) of terrorist suspects. But less than two
hours later, following a meeting with the Prime Minister, he said he was "convinced" of the need for the
new legislation. He later claimed: "Being a simple sailor not a politician
maybe I didn't choose my words well... Maybe my choice of words wasn't very
clever". The incident was an embarrassment for the government,
particularly as West was the minister charged with navigating the
controversial legislation through the House of Lords.
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