SHADOW defence secretary Maria Eagle doesn’t believe that Jeremy Corbyn’s statement that he would never blast millions of people into nuclear oblivion is “helpful.”

But his truthful admission was the only answer to be given in light of his lifelong opposition to possession and threatened use of these weapons of mass destruction.

Eagle asserted that the Labour leader’s comments “undermined to some degree” the party’s review of its attitude to nuclear weapons.

Does she really expect that Corbyn should adopt a policy of silence on the issue while other shadow cabinet members jangle on about their commitment to what they call Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent?

Well OK, it’s certainly nuclear, so one out of four can’t be bad, can it?

It’s not Britain’s because the hardware is bought from the US, it’s not independent because no British PM could launch nuclear-armed rockets without Washington’s permission and it’s not a deterrent, as Argentina’s recourse to military action over the Falklands proved.

The so-called nuclear deterrent is a cold-war relic that expresses a post-imperial vanity designed to persuade that Britain remains a major world power.

Germany, Japan and other states seem to be taken seriously in international forums without nuclear arsenals, so why is Trident or its planned replacement so crucial for tin-hatted British politicians?

The dilemma facing Labour over whether to back a Trident replacement or adopt a modern defence policy is a problem of the party’s own making.

Its decision-making bodies have preferred to contemplate billions of pounds poured down the nuclear drain every year rather than challenge the preposterous Tory charge that non-WMD Labour would leave Britain defenceless.

If Britain is “defenceless” without nukes, so must every other state be, with the logical outcome that the entire world should sign up to the WMD agenda.

Corbyn’s comments don’t so much undermine Labour’s Trident review as prick the pomposity of unimaginative politicians who have been too frightened for decades to subject outdated shibboleths to critical scrutiny.

PM’s conceit

ONLY someone as estranged from human decency as David Cameron could view allocation of £25 million to build a prison in Jamaica as appropriate use of overseas aid.

Jamaica, in common with other Caribbean islands exploited and impoverished by European colonial empires, needs overseas investment to assist development.

Islands that provided British speculators, slaveowners and plantation owners with lucrative cotton, tobacco, sugar, bananas and other crops were dropped like hot cakes when Britain opted for the European Union.

Westminster disregarded the drastic effects of so doing on its newly independent former colonies.

Government officials made clear yesterday that self-interest is still Britain’s priority, seeing the £25m as an investment to assist forced repatriation of Jamaicans in British jails and save the exchequer £10m annually.

It is not surprising that Cameron rejected Jamaican PM Portia Simpson-Miller’s call to discuss reparations, but this is not a fringe issue. It is a regional priority.

Slavery’s historical injustices, exacerbated by post-abolition payment of compensation to slaveowners rather than slaves, have to be addressed.

Reparation is not simply a financial question, although investment in education, agriculture and manufacturing throughout the Caribbean is entirely justified and overdue.

Making amends also requires government acknowledgement of the enormity of colonialism’s crimes that underdeveloped Africa by enslaving millions of its people, exercised life-and-death power over the slaves and dominated Caribbean states’ economies even after independence.

Cameron’s airy dismissal of the reparations issue illustrates the depth of his colonial-style arrogance.