It’s a MAD world

There are times when I am really grateful for the people who have run the country for the last 60-odd years. They have excluded the likes of Bertrand Russell, Bruce Kent and, indeed, your contributors, Alex Orr and John Edgar. I am sure that the lastnamed were/are all very wellmeaning, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Thus, when Messrs Orr and Edgar lambast the service at Westminster Abbey (Letters, 7 May) which was held to recognise the Royal Navy’s Continuous at Sea Deterrent over the past 50 years, they only serve to show how out of touch they are with reality.

Perhaps those who do not want us to have a deterrent can explain how it is that we were never attacked by nucleararmed Soviet Russia? It didn’t stop them invading Czechoslovakia, or Korea, or Afghanistan, or involving themselves in surrogate wars worldwide, did it? Perhaps that has escaped their attention?

Russia still likes to test our reactions to bombers approaching UK airspace. They do not attempt to attack us directly, because they know that would spell the end for everyone. Appropriately, that is known as MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – and even the most bonkers regime avoids that.

In fact, Alex Orr and John

Edgar should be in the front rank at services celebrating our dedicated servicemen and women. It is thanks to them that they have the freedom to write their letters expressing opinions that the establishment might not agree with.

Those freedoms that we enjoyed whilst eastern Europe was under the Soviet yoke and since have been guaranteed by our services, foremost among them being the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines. They have also guaranteed the freedom of the EU to exist, for all the gratitude they show us.

ANDREW HN GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh