‘ I think one of the great

dangers,  looking to the future,

is that people become so used to

nuclear weapons as an unnoticed

background to all our lives,

that terrible mistakes will

be made because people forget

what they are dealing with.  I

feel there is very much a danger

now that our politicians are

further and further away from

the experience of the real thing,

from any experience

of the real thing.’

LORNA ARNOLD

speaking to TalkWorks

in October 2011

FILMS MADE BY

TalkWorks interviewed the British Labour Peer and former UK Secretary of State for Defence THE RT HON THE LORD BROWNE OF LADYTON for the first time in December 2009 when he convened with Margaret Beckett and other senior cross-party UK politicians theTop Level Group of Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. He was  subsequently instrumental in setting up a parallel European Leadership Network (ELN), and other leadership networks in different regions of the world to promote nuclear disarmament. He co-chaired the UK government’s Trident Commission of 2011/2013, a cross-party Trident alternatives review panel to look into the future of Britain’s nuclear policy, whose report was published 7 days before TalkWorks interviewed him in July 2013 for the second time.  In this second interview we asked him to reflect on what progress has been achieved, and what setbacks have been encountered in multilateral nuclear disarmament since our first interview.

Lord Browne interviewed in July 2013      ( Part 1 of 4)  

‘ The United Nations, a visionary

organisation—the first line of the

Charter,  ‘To save succeeding generations

from the scourge of war’, — uplifting!

Every secondary school should have

a  copy of the  Charter and the

Declaration of Human Rights

Why not?   It’s possible.’

BRUCE KENT

speaking to TalkWorks

in June 2014

‘ Any real religion is of the unity of human beings. Understanding other people and

learning  about other people; learning the

history of  things, is all terribly important

to me—the  bravery. We’ve just had this little

programme in Tavistock Square about the

conscientious objectors of the First World War

and to read the sufferings of those men, and

to see how they were treated, and to see how

the messages that should have been listened to

in 1914 were ignored. My own Pope Benedict—

no one’s  ever heard of him, absolutely

against that war: he said,  ‘Negotiate,

negotiate for God’s sake negotiate, you’ve

got to negotiate sometime;

negotiate now, not later’.

He was right, but they all ignored him.’

BRUCE KENT

speaking to TalkWorks

in June 2014

( Part 2 of 4)

Bruce Kent has been described as ‘the most principled and consistent figure in British public life’ and ‘a pillar of our great national tradition of political radicalism’ by the Chief Foreign Correspondent of The Telegraph

‘What would I say to the

politicians?  I’d say you at the

United Nations, you have got a

120-page draft treaty on the

elimination of nuclear weapons.

It’s been with you for fifteen years.

It’s similar to the one that abolishes

chemical weapons. This treaty has

been with you in draft. You have

never sat down to discuss its

terms. Sit down, call an

international meeting in London

and begin to negotiate the abolition

of nuclear weapons.  But they

won’t  discuss it because there is a

deep down religion which

they’ve had since 1945 that

nuclear weapons are the

answer to anybody’s

aggressive tendencies.’

BRUCE KENT

speaking to TalkWorks

in June 2014