Nick Clegg today became the first major party leader to call for the scrapping of Trident - Britain's submarine based nuclear missile system. He rightly identified the fact that such weaponry is outdated and no longer meets our defence needs; however it is a shame that Clegg did not go so far as to say that Britain should ditch its nuclear weapons altogether.

The LibDem leader simply said that Trident should not be replace 'like for like', implying that he favours some other, more cost effective nuclear weapons system. It's hard to tell exactly what this would be, Britain gave up it's airborne nuclear deterrent decades ago with the decommissioning of the Vulcan bomber and I can't see such a system being resurrected. Exactly what does Clegg suggest we replace Trident with?

However the arguments about the cost of the deterrent or the type of system used are largely irrelevant when you consider the moral implications of possessing such weapons in the first place. Weapons that are never going to be used, and are in fact utterly useless in terms of Britain's place in the world today and the threats it faces. Furthermore, our possession of nuclear weapons and our to determination to upgrade them totally undermines our position when attempting to lecture countries like Iran and North Korea about their own nuclear ambitions.

With the Conservatives promising a strategic defence review should they take office after the next election, it seems likely that even they will be forced to make difficult choices about Britain's defence expenditure and our nuclear deterrent. The fact that they have promised such a review after an election allows them to conveniently dodge pre-election questions on defence expenditure and shows that once again they are unable to commit to making tough decisions. With polls often showing real public support for nuclear disarmament, perhaps Labour is missing a trick here by not bringing this debate to the fore and creating a real dividing line between ourselves and the opposition.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is the President of PES, the grouping in the European Parliament which includes the UK Labour Party. This is his message to party activists following on from the dismal defeat of the recent elections.

While we await the final results of the European elections, it is obvious our socialist and social democratic family had a disappointing result.

We face a more conservative European Parliament, with a right that is more euro-sceptic and more nationalistic than before.

The low participation rate was a huge problem, especially for us. Our voters stayed away. They simply didn’t see the relevance of these elections. They did not see the political choices at European level - perhaps not surprising since these elections were mainly fought over national political disputes.

We had a European alternative, but it was not visible enough. Europe still needs a new direction. We are in the middle of a recession, and it will not go away. Wage earners are not to blame but they may end up paying the price. We will have 27 million unemployed next year unless we have a new and stronger European recovery effort. So we will continue our fight for more and better-coordinated investments in new jobs, and to save jobs. We will continue to stand up for social justice and equality. We will continue our fight for a global new deal, including a new strong global climate agreement in the coming months.

We have suffered a loss but we remain the second largest group in the European Parliament. We lost 3 percentage points overall, but we gained in ten member states including in the Czech Republic, in Sweden, in Greece and in Ireland where we are in opposition, and in Slovakia and Slovenia where we are in Government.

We need to reflect, and for our common European party to come forward with a renewed strategy and new ideas. But I say no to those who announce a profound crisis in European socialism. European citizens still depend on social democratic values for decent work, good schools, good health care and a clean environment. Europe still needs a society where everyone can participate, contribute and benefit. This is no time for dismantling our welfare states, it is time for strengthening them.

The centre-right cannot claim a victory for their policies. People are still worried abut the crisis, and the crisis remains our number one priority.

The far-right made worrying gains in the elections. People still need us to stand up for respect and tolerance for all, and to continue to fight to protect all workers from the recession.

We need more PES, not less PES. We will make new efforts to strengthen our European political party because we must engage more than ever as a political family in European politics.

This last week has seen the culmination of an internal Labour party conflict that goes back nearly decades. Many internal party conflicts are about policy, unfortunately this one is not - this is all about power. This is about Brownites and Blairites battling it out over who is to lead the Labour party, this is not two party factions at war over any particular policy position or ideology.

That is what makes ordinary members of the Labour party so angry, the fact that this instability is being caused not by differences in view between those in power but by power itself - or, more correctly, the senseless lust for power that is not supposed to be a feature of our democratic party.  It is a dismal situation indeed.

I didn't vote for Brown when he ran for leader, nobody voted for Brown because nobody was ever given the opportunity. Given the choice, perhaps I would have voted for Brown, but I was never given that choice. Nevertheless, activists have stuck by the leader and the party - and so too should the cabinet. We all know that changing leader now would trigger a general election, and we all know that Labour would lose that election. If the recent election results are anything to go by, the defeat would be crushing and many good Labour MPs would lose their seats. Clearly, Labour cannot afford to have a general election now - especially given the anti-incumbent mood of the voting public, which is entirely understandable in light of recent events.

However the main reason why Brown must stay is because the proposed alternative, i.e. someone from the Blairite camp, would pursue exactly the same policies as the current leadership. Ideologically there is not, and never was, a single credible difference between the policies of the Blairites and those of the Brownites. A change of leader would therefore be nothing more than changing the team captain and bringing on a few subs at half time - essentially, the players are all still playing for the same team, still pursuing the same policies that have put us so disasterously out of favour with the British public.

Labour's best chance of a victory at the next election is to hope that Brown has finally understood the magnitude of the problem at hand. If we can take the lead on electoral reform, on constitutional reform, on the cleaning-up of MP's expenses and create clear dividing lines between us and the Tories, clear ideological choices for the voting public to make, then perhaps we have a chance of winning a historic fourth term in a year's time. 

Si on croit que la justice est simplement un moyen par lequel une forme de société particuliéré est imposée - alors la justice est une forme de pouvoir. Mais dans ce cas, la justice n'est pas vraiment justice - suelement dans le nom.

C'est vrai que le systéme que nous appelons 'la justice' peut-être abus, notamment par ceux qui ont des de pouvoir ou qui ont la richesse, mais est-ce que leur action peut-être considéré comme juste?

C'est probable que la justice des hommes soit simplement un systéme pour la résolution de différends entre hommes - mais un systéme qui normalement favourise les détenteurs du pouvoir.

On peut discuter quant à savoir si l'injustice est délibéré ou le signe d'un dysfonctionement du systéme. C'est plus probable que ce soit une réflexion sur la nature humain et, sans un systéme altenatif, c'est cet abus du concept de la justice qui prévaudra sous la nom de la justice des hommes.