The Guardian — After the pomp and ceremony of his departure from Buckingham Palace, his speech on the doorstep at No 10, and a partial reshuffle, Gordon Brown’s role as prime minister began with an onerous and somewhat sobering task. Tony Blair, when faced with the duty, immediately went white in the face, said onlookers. John Major couldn’t face it: he went home for the weekend.

As prime minister, with ultimate responsibility for Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Mr Brown has to write a letter, in his own hand, giving instructions detailing what the UK’s response should be in the event of a pre-emptive nuclear attack.

The letter will be opened only by the commander of a British Trident submarine, who would have to assume that the prime minister was no longer in a position to take “live” command of the situation. The options are said to include the orders: “Put yourself under the command of the US, if it is still there”; “go to Australia”; “retaliate”; “or use your own judgment”.

Each new prime minister writes the letter as soon as he or she takes office after being “indoctrinated” by the chief of the defence staff, who explains precisely what damage a Trident missile could cause. The letter is destroyed when they leave office.

cates: go to australia? who? the dude who reads the letter? everyone? isn’t this what they did with convicts in the 19th century? i’m confused.

jay: yeah, dude. you guys should fully re-colonize australia. they’ve gone astray, bring ‘em back.

this entry was posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 7:13am and is filed under why, lord? why?. you can follow any responses to this entry through the rss 2.0 feed. you can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.