Sub secrecy? Time for Boot

Come clean on ‘drunk’ missile

RECENTLY I took delivery of a newish second-hand car and I’m still getting used to its little quirks. When I nudge away from the kerb a message flashes on the dashboard saying: “Speed too high.” As I’m going less than 1mph at this point the warning is plainly absurd so I ignore it. Perhaps I shouldn’t. Something similar must have happened when that Trident missile staggered drunkenly out of the sub.

Beaches

Instead of turning right for home, it lurched unsteadily left towards the tempting beaches of Miami, no doubt loudly singing rude rugby songs along the way. We’ve all done it. Maybe the sailors who look after Trident also ignored a warning flashed onto the dashboard of HMS Vengeance: “Too much juice. Someone call me a cab.” That’s when they should have relieved it of its ignition keys. But if we can’t trust a £17million Trident II D5 nuclear missile to stay sober who can we trust? Not Theresa May or Defence Secretary Michael Fallon. Their response to this disturbing disclosure was to say absolutely nowt.

Whitehall has got better at openness and not keeping needless secrets. MI5 published a remarkably detailed history of itself, its jobs are advertised openly, and intelligence services have publicly accessible websites.

Whitehall is not so good at being grown-up about the secrets which take it by surprise, such as a squiffy missile.

Ministers should have learned their lesson when former MI5 spy Peter Wright went rogue in 1987 with his book Spycatcher, which contained claims his chief Sir Roger Hollis and Labour PM Harold Wilson were Russian moles.

Banning the book was pointless. It was smuggled in from abroad and the publicity meant it sold two million copies and made Wright a millionaire.

Suppressing a BBC documentary about Wright was bonkers.

Had we seen it at the time we’d have known he was as off his trolley as a tipsy Trident and stopped taking him seriously.

That would have minimised damage to the security service.

Once a secret is revealed the fallout needs managing, not hiding.

That’s why once we know a submarine has coughed up something unpleasant, cover- ups should be given Das Boot.