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Should Britain spend £25 billion in developing a replacement for its nuclear weapon system? Tony Blair says a decision will be taken this year. The Chancellor, in a speech on June 21, spoke of the need for Britain 'to retain its independent nuclear deterrent'. It's not clear that Parliament will even be given a vote on the matter -- though it's clear there is no legal necessity for such a vote. Gordon Brown's apparent support for an upgraded nuclear defence system is already raising the hackles of some of his supporters, including who believe his stance could lose him the leadership of the Labour Party.

Yesterday, Mr Brown , arguing that the UK can honour its commitments to Africa and the developing world while financing a replacement weapon system. He made his comments in Scotland, the home of the British nuclear deterrent, in response to growing opposition from Scottish churches. The previous evening, the leader of Scotland's Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, and the Church of Scotland moderator, the Rt Reverend Alan McDonald, shared a platform at a public meeting in Glasgow on Tuesday evening, and joined forces in challenging the case for a new weapon system. The Moderator asked:

What was the point in having a Make Poverty History campaign a year ago that the churches so enthusiastically joined in with and then at the end of the day here we are proposing to spend £25bn on a useless weapon? That seems to me to be close to insanity.

Some important political and ethical questions need now to be faced, including: Does Britain need an independent nuclear deterrent today? Who is it aimed at deterring in a post-Cold War global environment? And, of course, the key ethical question here: If, as those church leaders argue, there are no circumstances in which the use of nuclear weapons could be justified, can their retention and storage morally justified as a 'deterrent'?