It is heartening to see that the Guardian is maintaining its level of journalistic standards:
“Polaris, the current deterrent”
Patrick Wintour and Martin Kettle (the journalists responsible for the article) have their Polaris and Tridents confused. As far as I am aware, Trident is the current deterrent.
“In an interview with the Guardian, he (Reid) gives the first indication of government thinking in what promises to be one of the most controversial decisions of this parliament.”
If the journalists had checked Hansard, they would know that Trident replacement was discussed by the government before this year’s general election. The (then) Secretary of State for Defence made a statement in the House on 14 March 2005:
Geoffrey Hoon: “The decision on whether or not to replace Trident is likely to be required during the next Parliament.”
Trident was discussed in the Paxman / Blair interview aired by the BBC on 20 April 2005 in the run-up to the general election. In response to Paxman’s question about a Trident replacement:
Blair: “You just, look, there's no point in speculating about that at the moment, cos we're a long way off taking the decision.”
Hoon and Blair were contradicting each other during the election campaign. It has transpired that Hoon was the one telling the truth.