Are you feeling lucky, punk?

- the immortal words of Clint Eastwood's policeman character, when confronting a villain.

Is this what our nuclear deterrent will amount to if, as G.Brown offered yesterday to world leaders, we reduce our number of nuclear-armed submarines from four to three?

Given that four submarines has meant that we could arrange that three could be available or at sea while one was being serviced/refitted/repaired, will this mean that there could be times when we don't actually have any submarines of this type at sea, and therefore make us unable to retaliate?

Perhaps the punks will not know that we are playing roulette, or more likely other countries, including the much maligned USA, will have reactive capability to frighten the punks with the idea of mutual destruction.

Is there, in these straightened times, really any point in having three submarines at all?

A final thought, - Brown intends to save the world financial system, is he now attempting to save us all from nuclear destruction by reducing our small deterrent even further. Will anyone listen or react to what he has said?