Trident provokes passionate debate - but it should be seen as a practical issue rather than one of ideology
As Jim Murphy, Labour’s leader in Scotland, remarked during the last television debate, much of the coverage of the election is about the horse trading that will begin on 8 May rather than about the issues that will be at stake 24 hours earlier on polling day. Nowhere is this clearer than on defence. Defence is vital, yet the arguments have been too readily reduced to what the Scottish National Party (SNP) might or might not do in the House of Commons with MPs who are, as yet, not even elected.