It would be nice if we had an effective opposition, but we don't. Not when it comes to security concerns. Corbyn's stance with trident and Stop the War means that no one, and I mean no one, can take any argument he puts forward seriously when it comes to security. The result? The government can get away with anything that has a vaguely plausible sounding justification.

The only thing that can stop them now is the media, but it really is not their job to be the opposition.

Cutting down on nuclear armament, which I presume is what you are calling out Corbyn for, is hardly something that no one could reasonably consider. You realize there are entire countries without nuclear weapons, right?

Exactly, nobody questions whether other European nations (aside from France) don't care about security.

Furthermore, if Britain did give up Trident they wouldn't be the first nuclear power to give up on nuclear weapons, South Africa did it first.

I'd suggest Japan has the right idea with regards to nuclear weapons... retain the knowledge about how to build nuclear weapons, but don't retain an active stockpile you're not going to use.

There's little point for the UK to have a US-controlled nuclear weapons system on its soil, and to pay for the privilege. The US has nukes anyway.

Yes we can't operate and maintain (mostly maintain) without US assistance because we have made a plan where we share that duty. If we changed our minds and decided to go alone we would could do so.

The nukes on the subs can be launched without US approval. As members of NATO we would discuss before firing under most circumstances, but that is a rather different scenario to the "UK requires US authorisation to fire nukes" being implied elsewhere.

When it comes down to brass tacks we have complete operational control of our nukes independently. That in most situations we would discuss with our allies before nuking someone does not mean our nukes are not independent, nor does that we reduce costs by sharing maintenance of nukes not in our subs with the US mean we have lost independence.

So the argument that we do not have independent control of our nukes fails.

That is a short post and doesn't make a strong argument compared to the UK's House of Commons Defence Committee saying that the UK could not maintain and operate Trident independently.

Even if the UK could theoretically launch Trident without US authorisation, they wouldn't in practice.

Like Ukraine?

What would Ukraine do with nukes? Threaten to nuke Moscow? Knowing their country would become radioactive glass in response? Russia would have no reason to assume Ukraine would be insane enough to use them over losing a few regions, and so would have no reason to take them much into account.

As a side note, Ukraine actually did have nuclear weapons post-USSR. Then, Ukraine agreed to give them up, in exchange for clauses in treaties where Russia guarantees its territorial integrity.

So now, after Crimean acquisition, we know that the Russian signature in nuclear treaties is worth nothing.

Ukraine is not part of NATO the UK is this makes a difference to our defence requirements. NATO might be stronger if the UK took half the money to be spent on Trident and spent it on fighter jets (and the other half on not cutting junior doctors' salaries or cutting taxes or whatever).

… and Germany

Apart from the Guardian I think all the media is wanting them to go faster. Because terrorism.

What we need is a data disaster. What's the phone number for Anonymous? :)

What difference would that make? The party in opposition came up with the Interception Modernisation Program [0], tried to introduce ID cards, did introduce control orders [1], pushed through RIPA 'because terrorism' and then used it to surveil all and sundry, introduced the DNA register (and fought tooth and nail when ECHR declared its retention practices illegal) to name just a few of their legislative highlights.

If you're looking for pushback against Orwellian government over reach you're unlikely to find it there.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interception_Modernisation_P... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_order

Has it occurred to you that by spreading hopelessness and despondency, you're making it more likely that we will lose?

Yes of course.

I was hoping for a few "buck your ideas up we can stop this" replies... As I said further down in the comment tree I will definitely be writing to my MP before any Commons readings of this bill.

However, I really can't see how to win this one. Both of our major political parties are seemingly totally committed to erosion of civil liberties, the security services have such a vast control already and I can't see meaningful opposition surviving the tabloid newspaper treatment. Also I know intelligent people who support this bill (and similar laws) and even more people who just don't see it as a priority.

I think that it will take a total change in public opinion for the creeping erosion of civil liberties to be reversed and I don't see that happening with our current media until British people have experienced a Statsi-like situation for themselves.

I often thought this in the past, but I found that if you stop supporting your side - the vacuum is quickly filled with the opposition. Any effort on your behalf to support your views, however little, will have a big effect.

Let's hope they won't get too much worse then.

This government has shown precious little consideration for the electorate. All our governments have a love of data and IT, despite their consistent track record of screwing up every project and not understanding it at all.

It's going to continue, probably until all the Cabinet's entire search history is found to be in the database and it's pastebin'd.

They're absolutely not going to stop, in my opinion, until something makes 62m people realise it was a silly idea. By which time, it is of course, too late.

I fear that things will get a lot worse. I am of the opinion that a free society cannot survive the effects of pervasive surveillance for long. I will of course be writing to my MP before any readings of the bill in the Commons. I expect that this will not make a difference though.