PR for the Emperor's new weapons

Bearing in mind the hoo-ha over Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction I'm surprised that no-one has asked our government to prove we actually have any ourselves.

Particularly since we're currently arguing over a long-term plan to replace our (alleged) Trident nuclear missile system. And when I say "we" I include Mikhail Gorbachev, who at least has seen plenty. This is Show & Tell without the Show, but then the way the world spins its fighting capabilities has moved on, except in North Korea where the military parade still trumps (or, in fact, is) reality TV.

With conventional weapons, our defence bosses have never seen the point of being armed to the teeth with battle-cruisers, strike bombers, heavy artillery, assault rifles etc and not having a go with then.

But with the nuclear arsenal we have to take things on trust. Indeed in the west we don't even bother testing our nuclear weapons any more - we take the view that they work fine thanks, want to try us out?

For years our nuclear missiles prowled the world on Polaris submarines which we decommissioned in the 1990s without ever using them. (We'd have known if we had, since by now there would only be pockets of us left, mutating our way through a nuclear winter. We have the Royal Navy's lack of curiosity to thank for world peace, such as it is).

Warfare happens when spin breaks down, so frankly, some of our PR people could try a little harder. For instance, around the time we abandoned Polaris, our Royal Navy unveiled their all-new warship, which used Klingon cloaking technology to render it entirely invisible.

As I recall, they decided to hold a photo opportunity (see what I mean?) and we were all up for this - an invisible ship is not the kind of thing you don't see every day, after all. But in fact it's only invisible on radar, dummy - we could see the thing perfectly clearly on TV. I don't think orders flooded in.

If you're going to do a photo opportunity, go large. They should have taken the assembled journalists and arms dealers to a vast expanse of entirely empty sea and said "Right, there you are - 400 battleships. How many shall we put you down for?"

Stealth technology, which is simply the reverse of packaging, is a must-have on the international weaponry front these days, like WMD. With no proof of their existence here in the UK, they could be the ultimate in invisible earnings, but they're going to need better PR than they get.