The Trident row
What happened
Theresa May came under fierce criticism this week for covering up news of a Trident missile test that went dramatically awry. According to The Sunday Times, an unarmed missile launched from the submarine HMS Vengeance off the Florida coast last summer, veered off course and headed back towards the US mainland before self-destructing. The misfire came weeks before the Government’s victory in a key Commons vote on renewing the Trident II D5 missile system. May’s critics claim she deliberately omitted any reference to the incident during the debate.
In a TV interview this week, May repeatedly refused to say whether she had known of the incident at the time of the vote, although Downing Street later conceded that she had been informed. Press reports said that Washington, which supplies Britain with its stock of Trident missiles, had asked Downing Street to suppress any news of the test’s failure.
What the editorials said
Ministers are “treating the British public like children”, said the Daily Mirror. It’s a matter of “paramount” public importance that tests involving a key element of our nuclear defence failed. Yet May and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon have deliberately kept MPS in the dark. Of course, there’s sometimes a case for preserving “military secrets”, as Fallon claims, but the Russians would have known all about the test’s failure from their own satellites. Besides, it’s ridiculous for Downing Street to say it never comments on such matters, said The Times. When past Trident tests were successful, it never hesitated to broadcast the news. Any failings with Trident should now be examined, “seriously and openly”.
That’s simply “idiotic”, said The Sun. Yes, it’s “deeply worrying” that the test should have gone so badly wrong. But May was quite right to stay silent. The “surest way” to undermine our strategy of nuclear deterrence would be to advertise our failures to the whole world. “Our enemies would – rightly – think we had gone mad.”