Party hopefuls start firing in nuclear war

Published on Monday 12 November 2007 11:58

A ROW over nuclear weapons has broken out between the Liberal Democrat leadership contenders, with favourite Nick Clegg accusing rival Chris Huhne of backing "unilateral rearmament".

Mr Huhne won loud applause from party members at a hustings in Edinburgh at the weekend when he attacked plans to spend 20 billion replacing Trident.

But in an online article he has argued some "minimum nuclear deterrent" may be necessary as an alternative.

Mr Clegg - who backs the official party line of scrapping 50 per cent of Trident warheads immediately and putting the rest into multilateral disarmament talks in 2010 - said scrapping Trident and adopting another nuclear missile system would be costly and illegal.

Speaking after the meeting, he said: "I'm afraid I simply don't agree with an approach which pretends to be one of unilateral disarmament but is in fact on closer inspection one of unilateral rearmament."

Mr Huhne told around 250 party activists at the General Assembly Hall on The Mound: "We cannot properly equip our soldiers . . . and spend 20 billion on an all-singing, all-dancing replacement for Trident

But on the Liberal Democrat Voice website, he wrote: "I think we need to be clear about our preference for a minimum nuclear deterrent as an alternative."