Recent news means we should change our perspective on nuclear weapons

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Members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) after winning the Nobel Peace Prize on 6 October (AFP/Getty)

Caroline Lucas spelled out on Saturday 7 October what the PM should now do about nuclear weapons. To which I would add that the PM’s first and immediate action should be to rescind her statement that she is prepared to carry out pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

Such an action, or even the threat of doing so, is in contravention of Nuremberg and Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and a 1996 ruling by the International Court of Justice and therefore places our Trident submarine commanding officers in an impossible position as to whether they should carry out such an order, bearing in mind they are not absolved of responsibility by the military chain of command.

Robert Forsyth

Deddington, Oxfordshire

After endless news about North Korea’s bomb tests and claims of their nuclear abilities, it is good to see a news story reporting that a “Ban the Bomb” group has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe they will be able to use their renewed influence to convince the world to get rid of nuclear weapons. Now that’s some news that I do want to hear.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Melbourne

I was very struck by the dark and sober piece by David E Banks in Sunday’s Daily Edition (claiming that Kim/Trump has shades of Khrushchev/Kennedy – with dangerous added machismo). And I was reminded of the words Iain M Banks puts into the mouth of his character Zakalwe in Use of Weapons:

“There’s a saying: ‘War is a long cliff.’ You can avoid the cliff completely, you can walk along the top for as long as you have the nerve, you can even choose to leap off, and if you only fall a short way before you hit a ledge you can always scramble back up again. Unless you’re just plain invaded, there are always choices, and even then, there’s usually something you’ve missed – a choice you didn’t make – that could have avoided invasion in the first place. You people still have your choices. There’s nothing inevitable about it.”

Now all we have to do is get Kim and Trump to read the book…

Bruce Napier

Willington, Derbyshire

The options for Boris Johnson

Here’s my advice to Theresa May in the event of a cabinet reshuffle: swap Hunt and Johnson. Johnson has promised £350m a week for the NHS: let him deliver it. Hunt would be a more dignified Foreign Secretary and would be a welcome replacement internationally.

Brendan Griggs

Cambridge

How can a politician who is the face of Britain to the international community as a foreign minister act the way he has done in the last few weeks and get away with it?

This man needs to be sacked. Boris may think that being a member of the elite can save his dishevelled chops from everything he says or does. But this needs to be proven wrong – he has to go.

To think that we could have ended up with him as prime minister sends a shiver down my spine.

Soumaia Chetouan

Address supplied

Don’t believe the hype about Ruth Davidson

I think a dose of realism might be in order for Conservative supporters in England. The picture they have of Ruth Davidson in Scotland is mistaken and entirely the result of continuous inaccurate promotion.

The Tories in Scotland now sit at low to mid 20s in recent polls, dropping behind Labour and up to 20 points behind the SNP who have 35 seats in the Scottish Parliament to the Tories’ 13. The notion that the Tories beat the SNP in Scotland is entirely fanciful and the product of wishful thinking and spin.

What actually happened at the recent general election in Scotland is that the SNP didn’t turn up. A huge proportion of independence support didn’t come out as there was no independence campaign. The SNP had just used its major resources at the Scottish local elections in gaining its highest ever number of council seats and moving in as the largest party in all of Scotland’s major cities and many of its counties.

It was not ready at all for the election which was. This was accompanied across Scotland in some target seats with up to 15 leaflets, many posted, to hundreds and thousands of households and all, whether Tory, Labour or Lib Dem, with no policies whatsoever but screaming the same “No referendum” message.

The election resulted in the Tories moving into second place but this has already dissipated and all recent polls have shown their vote dropping behind Labour and that of the SNP (and independence) in first place climbing again. So the idea that Davidson has saved the Tories in Scotland and is a popular political figure is false. Many people laugh when her name is mentioned. She is one of those political figures who were more popular before they were propelled fully into public view.

Were the choice put before the Scottish people that Ruth “See me, see me” Davidson could be sent to an English seat tomorrow, three quarters of them would help pay for the bus fare.

But, hey, lots of Scots are happy to see the UK establishment swallowing its own spin.

Dave McEwan Hill

Sandbank, Argyll

The pain of Brexit

Keynes spoke of “the recrudescence of the strain of Puritanism in our blood, the zest to adopt a painful solution because of its painfulness”.

Brexit in a nutshell?

Mike Bor

London W2