Trident attack: Tory Fallon accused of ‘gutter’ politics

The Tories stand accused by Labour of "descending into the politics of the gutter” after launching a vicious personal attack on Ed Miliband over the contentious issue of whether the Trident nuclear deterrent should be replaced.

Michael Fallon, the Tory Defence Secretary, warned that Miliband was prepared to do a deal with the SNP to hang onto power, even it meant scrapping the Trident replacement. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, confirmed last night in a Scottish election debate that scrapping Trident was a "red line” issue for any power-sharing talks with Labour after the election.

But Fallon surprised even some Tory supporters by turning the Trident argument into a personal attack on Ed Miliband in an article for The Times.

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Fallon accused the Labour leader of “weakness” claimed that his readiness to run against his own brother for the Labour leadership showed he had a “lust for power”.

“Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister,” Fallon writes.

The BBC’s Norman Smith said the charge has “incensed” the Labour heirarchy who have accused Fallon of launching a smear campaign against Miliband. But it underlines the extent to which the Tories want to make Miliband’s suitability as a future prime minister the decisive issue at the election.

The sheer ferocity of Fallon’s language even made some Conservatives recoil. Tim Montgomerie, former editor of ConservativeHome and now a Times columnist, tweeted: “Embarrassing - way too personal by Fallon against Miliband.”

For Labour, Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “This is desperate stuff from a rattled campaign”. He accused the Tories of descending into the “politics of the gutter”, adding: “They are like a wounded, cornered animal at the moment - they are lashing out. It’s nonsense.”

Fallon was unapologetic. He told Radio 4’s Today programme this morning: “We saw in the [Labour] leadership contest what he [Miliband] would do to get into power. We saw what he would do to his own brother. We need to know what he would do to get into power.”

The Conservative election manifesto, to be published next week, will commit the Conservatives to replace the Trident system with a new nuclear weapon and four submarines to enable them to patrol 24/7 year-round.

Alexander committed Labour to replacing Trident with a minimal credible independent deterrent system, which could mean building three new submarines rather than four to cut the overall cost.

Miliband knows that scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent would be electoral suicide and risk turning back the clock to Labour unilateralism under Michael Foot, which led to 18 years in the political wilderness and the rise of Margaret Thatcher.

But many within Labour would be in favour of scrapping what they see as a hugely expensive outmoded deterrent.

“How exactly does a submarine system designed for the Cold War era meet threats of international terrorism?” asked Diana Abbott. “It is surprising nobody is talking about the practical arguments against renewing Trident.”

At least Fallon may have achieved something - he may have injected a spark of life into a moribund election campaign.