Ian Bell

RUSTING and listless, a hunter-killer sub doesn't look like much. The flaking industrial paint might retain a hint of all-purpose sinister, but you can't truly disguise a vainglorious tin can no bigger than a school bus. When it's a clear sunny day, meanwhile, and when the usual avid gulls are circling in the usual blue Fife sky, doom is remote. Spare me.

Still, that was Rosyth, once upon a time. The boats, three of them, had been laid to rest in a forgotten dock because the navy had no better ideas. Extracting the reactors was tricky, apparently. But local men - and a local MP named Gordon Brown - were taking all the work that was going.

I spoke to a couple of those trade unionists. I hadn't known about the itinerant lives of nuclear crews, how they followed the boats - lock, stock, families and megatons - around the old naval ports, Kent to Fife and all points between. They were good at their jobs. But if Her Majesty's Government felt the need to obliterate someone, these workers were ready.

This was not one of life's aims, of course. They abhorred nuclear holocaust. For a large part of the 20th century, indeed, the people of Rosyth knew they were listed on the first page of Soviet targets. At Faslane, even now, in that beautiful place, they understand how an algorithm on someone's computer can spell their address.

Stupid, obviously. I can still remember wandering home from school when "Cuba", "missiles" and "crisis" had been arranged to suggest an ended world. I grew up amid the conviction that a definitive war was inevitable. You could protest all you liked, but it made no difference. Sooner or later, the fireworks would go off.

Scotland was never fond of that. I hate to be parochial, but this is where I live. It's sparse and slight, but this bit of landmass has rejected nuclear weapons from their first appearance. At each time of asking - STUC, Labour Party, SNP, any opinion poll - the dissent has been apparent. No thanks, it says.

You want chapter and verse? Here is the story. Babcock Thorn, a consortium operated by Babcock International and Thorn EMI, was awarded the management contract for Rosyth dockyard in 1987; after which Babcock Thorn was government-owned, as "contractor-run" facilities. This contract was then awarded in parallel with Devonport Dockyard Ltd's contract to run the Devonport dock.

In 1993, the Ministry of Defence then declared a plan to "privatise" the Rosyth yard. Babcock "International" - which had bought Thorn's share of the original Babcock Thorn deal - was the only company to submit a bid.

Negotiations were thereinafter "protracted". The lease on the killing of most humans was much sought after. But in 1984, Rosyth was selected as the sole location - this may be where I come in - for the refitting of the Navy's nukes.

In 1993, "politically", it seems, the work was then switched to Devonport. I went there. It rained and the people were nice. Then I went back to Rosyth, in 1993, to the carolling gulls, and to another blue day.

On my blue day there were three boats rocking on their anchors. I'm told seven rest there now. They are, supposedly, being "stored" against future use. So: the Churchill; the Dreadnought (seventh of the line); Resolution; Repulse; Renown; Revenge; and Swiftsure. Killing machines.

I have a little trouble when I hear the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland mock his Nationalist opponent with the formulation that nukes = jobs. Iain Gray said as much the other week. In the case of Faslane, the usual round number ranges between 10,000 and 11,000. That's employment. But is also implies a lot of death for someone.

Who would that be? We're not supposed to kill Russians, currently. It's bad for business, and bad for the gas supplies. So we are offered Iranians, North Koreans, and - villains in the wings - some Pakistani Taliban who might make it to Karachi, and find "the Button". So Scotland, as a wholly rational response, must become the home-from-home for our very own nuclear flotilla?

The risk of sounding predictable increases with the years, but I have seen the horrors come and go. No-one dared the first strike, not even Reagan. Even the insane declined the chance to go nuclear. Through it all, Britain spent extraordinary amounts on her force de frappe.

For defence? For a permanent seat on the UN Security Council? For the chance to be taken "seriously", globally?

For the hope that this week's terrorist would back off in the face of our puissance? Hardly.

It never made much sense. So the badly-kept secret concerning the nuclear boats, Scotland, and radioactive garbage feels like a political gesture. It smacks of provocation. How might an "anti-nuclear" SNP reject all those jobs? But why, alternatively, would a Westminster government implant a key defence element in a territory with a nationalist tendency?

Here's why. Watch and hear. "Good news for the Clyde," says Bob Ainsworth, minister for our armed forces. A "great move for Scotland," says Jim Sheridan, another of those Scottish MPs you may have forgotten. A "great boost to Scotland", says Iain Gray, from Holyrood. Immoral is of no account. Labour is providing jobs in the mass murder business.

I could grant the argument a certain functionality. Doesn't everyone know that nuclear weapons will never be used? So what harm could there be in renting our moral sense to American defence interests, preparing for the "jobs bonanza" of Trident, and screwing the SNP?

Let's begin from principles. Let's say this: if nuclear piece-work is all that the British state has to offer Scottish workers, nothing has been learned. Do they still believe that old Labour votes are things to be bought?

Is it still presumed that time-served people will discard morality for a shift? And is this a mere bribe?

Probably. There is a new kid on the block, nevertheless. President Obama is the latest American leader to declare that profoundly nasty weapons - whose mere possession qualifies as a war crime - have to go. Where is that in the Faslane story? Who down in the hilarious bunker - we know you're in there, chaps - has begun to wonder about alternative uses for a Scottish work force?

When do we get to emerge from the dark ages? A "great boost to Scotland" is not, I think, an exercise in summoning the best-qualified extermination squad on the planet. Meanwhile, locking my country into the union might be better achieved through democratic virtue, if any, than by treating us as a mercenary clientele.

That's just my opinion. Perhaps if I knew how to screw a warhead in place, and if I had bills to pay, I would adopt another view.

Those who make the choices have no such burdens. Say "10,000 jobs" to an armed forces minister and your argument - especially your Ministry of Defence argument - is done. Scotland's SNP government is being tempted into turning Faslane, that environmental disaster, into a planning issue. Alex Salmond should stick to morality.

Just say no. I don't speak for everyone, but I long ago grew tired of trying to make a life on someone else's killing ground. Nukes don't work; no-one would dare to use them; and we have better uses for the money. Even Malcolm Rifkind - and times have indeed changed - will tell you as much.

After my day at Rosyth, I would wonder sometimes. I'd wonder about the people who worked hard to make those boats fit for service. Then I would wonder about the men who occupied those tin cans, ready - training to always be ready - to heap horror on strangers. Then I wondered about those who might give the orders.

A nuclear strike? Made in Scotland? In exchange for 10,000 Scottish jobs? If there is any sort of moral equivalence in that, I'm the terrorist you're looking for, officer. You have to be kidding.

But I'm not.