The news over the last few days has been full of the debate over replacing Britain's nuclear weapons and it has made me pasue for thought as it does create a huge contradiction inmy own mind.

I am not normally one to sit on the fence on controversial issues but this is one time when I feelI must.

No one wants nuclear weapons, including me, not really. The horror of nuclear war and the aftermath is beyond imagination, and their very concept and use, where huge areas of human population wouldbe exterminated at the push of a button goes against everything i belive in. It also creates an absurd paradox, to be used as a deterent you must be prepared to use them, yet the moment you are forced to do so the deterent has failed. And yet at the same time I am reluctant to throw my weight behind the disarmament argument.

It is a cliche but I will say it, you can't uninvent nuclear weapons, pandoras box cannot be closed, the genie will not go back in the bottle! And while regimes like North Korea have nuclear weapons do we really want a world where stable, democratic nations with the ability and will to protect not just themselves but their weaker neighbours do not? Can you imagine that?

I want a peaceful, stable world where we do not squander out resources on horrific weapons that we will never use, but how we get there I don't know, and that is to my own discredit.