Matthew Taylor

Sunday political interviews round-up: Labour may scrap Trident, Corbyn says

Corbyn – Labour may scrap Trident nuclear deterrent

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn occupied the prime slot on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, and he told Marr that he wants to see ‘a very different country’. But how different? He was asked what he would say to the captains of the Trident submarines about whether to use their missiles in the event of a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom.

‘What I will be saying is that I want us to achieve a nuclear free world. What I want us to do is adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and take part in negotiations surrounding that, and crucially… immediately promote the six party talks on the Korean peninsula as a way of de-escalating nuclear tensions around the world…

‘The issue has to be we want a secure and peaceful world. We achieve that by promoting peace, but also promoting security, and security comes from that process… I think we should look at the process by which we achieve peace and security because actually nuclear weapons are not the solution to the world’s security issues. They’re the disaster of the world’s security issues if ever used.’

He also stopped short of endorsing his defence spokesperson Nia Griffith’s claim that keeping Trident would be in the Labour manifesto:

‘We will have a strategic defence review immediately which will include all aspects of defence, as most incoming governments do… and we would then look at the situation at that time… We haven’t completed work on the manifesto yet… we’re having that discussion within the Labour party manifesto in May.’

This led Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, to claiming that Labour would ‘dismantle the UK’s defences’.


Damian Green – We will cap energy prices

Remember how the Tories laughed at Ed Miliband’s supposedly 1970s-style plan to cap energy bills? This very policy has become the centrepiece of Theresa May’s move to the economic left – and one of her closest Cabinet allies, Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green, was selling its virtues to Sophy Ridge on Sky.

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