My position on nuclear weapons reflects that of many folk, I reckon. Like a mountain switchback road, it has altered course at times over my life.

As a 1980s Cold War kid, I was uncontroversially anti-nukes. Most of us were, apart from teenage Tories who wore suits on Saturdays.

In the 1990s, I had a rather more mature view. Whilst no longer unilateralist, I hoped that with the end of the Cold War, the world could find the wisdom to collectively "ban the bomb".

Come the rise of Putin, though, everything changed. I’ve been warning of the threat from Putin since the atrocities committed by Russian forces in Chechnya emerged, and the 2006 assassination of the investigative journalist Anna Politikovskaya, whom I was privileged to get to know a little.

My position on nuclear weapons complicated my support for Scottish independence. The SNP wants to remove Trident from Scotland in the event of independence, whilst also joining Nato. I saw the policy as illogical, and felt it made Scotland seem inimical to European security.

My view of nuclear weapons was broadly this: they are dreadful creations, and if I could wave a magic wand and make them disappear I would, but if you’re standing in a room full of maniacs all holding machine guns, you don’t drop your pistol. To do so, is either an act of submission or suicide.

However, in the Trump era, everything must be reconsidered, including long-held beliefs about our nuclear arsenal.

Throughout the post-Cold War period, Britain wilfully failed to have a meaningful discussion about the........

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