Trial By The Peerless (Part 2)

In a shocking break from my normal routine of struggling to find something to write about, I actually had a response to something! Please see the comment appended to my previous post. Since it seems impossible to provide a cogent reply without running afoul of this sites draconian character limits, I have responded herewith.

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Hi James,

Many thanks for your response, as you noted I’m still banging the drum for a return to the 19^th century, but aside from general failure on that particular cause I’m otherwise well, I hope you are also.

I’ve had to split my response, since the original post was too long!

To take your points in turn;

The ability to distinguish justice from injustice is largely separate from IQ.

On the whole I would largely agree with this, as a standalone principle, and I am certainly not advocating the kind of testing that would screen out any save legal graduates. However, the anecdotal evidence I was indirectly responding to with this suggestion was of jurors for whom spoken and written English presented a significant challenge, for whatever reason. In the same way I would be completely unable to make a reasoned judgement on a trial presented to me entirely in Spanish, it seems unreasonable we are appointing juries without the necessary level of English to understand the topics placed before them. Likewise a systemic lack of knowledge into the roles played by the various components of a modern court system (for example the knowledge that a jury is responsible for coming to a ‘reasonable’ decision based on the evidence presented too it, or the presumption of innocence), seems to increase the likelihood of a decision based on considerations other than those laid down in our legal system.

The fraudster (alleged) being tested for his ability to commit fraud

While fully acknowledging the intentions behind this example, I would conjecture that we do in fact allow exactly this, should the defense choose to present it as evidence.  A defendant who could prove that for medical, physical or practical reasons he was incapable of committing the alleged crime would seem to have a significant defense.

People are people

I think this particular point may well be susceptible to various open ended arguments about how one defines “society” “community” and in particular “peer.” The particular point I was trying to convey here (quite possibly rather poorly) was that juries are largely selected on a geographical basis, which made sense historically because people in a particular geographical location would share many of the things which are usually used to define a community (language, history, social institutions etc). However, in today’s world of mass population movement, the spread of information technology and a near unprecedented level of information exchange, it is no longer reasonable (in my opinion) to automatically equate geographical location with common values and opinions.

Just to further this point I would suggest that as someone who spends a lot of time online (whether it’s writing a blog, reading articles, or gaming), and most of the rest of my time at work, the community I “live” in is in many ways made up of people all over the world. A significant portion of the colleagues I interact with on a daily basis live in India, China and Malaysia, yet for all my ‘global’ community, a trial by my peers would be drawn purely from the geographical district in which my internet connection happens to reside.

My other consideration would be that given the vast diversity of cultures throughout the globe and the vast array of topics on which those systems fundamentally disagree, it seems that even if ‘people are people’ those people come to fundamentally different conclusions on a wide range of topics based on their education, social, spiritual and economic upbringing. Whether it’s the death penalty, the role of women in society, the age at which an individual is considered ‘adult’, or even what rights are ascribed to an individual, people in communities all over the world have different norms. My request is to be tried by a community of people who share, where possible, a set of circumstances that in some way mirrors my own.  I should also point out that I make no attempt throughout this to ascribe any superiority to my views or moral opinions over anyone else’s. As I noted in the article, while I may disagree with others calling themselves my peers, I would not attempt to empathise (however much I may sympathise) with people from radically different backgrounds and cultures.

Precedent, Communities, and who qualifies

I acknowledge from a practical point this is a tricky one. At heart I feel one of the key problems here is a changing over time in the role of a jury (which I believe I mentioned). Once a jury had only the most basic guidance from legal codes, and was largely left to come up with what they felt was a “just” and “reasonable” decision. In the modern world the emphasis is often to decide on another’s state of mind, or to draw inferences as to motivations and actions for which there is no direct evidence. (In Ms Pryce’s trial the sole issue that should have been concerning the jury is whether she was placed in a situation such that she had no alternative but to accept what Chris Huhne wanted, this has very little to do with “justice” and is more pop –psychology).

We already allow judges to rule on the basis of ‘common sense’ and strict application of the law, in cases which do not carry jail sentences. Perhaps a solution may be to change the jury’s duty from deciding innocence or guilt to deciding sentencing? In this way it may be possible to return a jury’s role to that of “reasonable justice” based on shared community standards.

With regards to the issues of “who decides who your peers are” and “how long before you become British” I’m going to split this out into two responses.

Becoming British

The issue of immigration and the contribution of those not born in this country is one I’ve deliberately tried to avoid because it tends to rapidly descend into name calling and bigotry. That caveat given, I would argue that the institutions and traditions are more important than ancestry or geographical location. Becoming part of a community (in this case the particular brand of romanticised nationalism I ascribed too) is not a function of generations or family descendants, or even too which particular nation you belong. The fundamental commonality is belief in a national community. I would far sooner call the men and women I’ve had the honour of knowing from Spain, Sweden, Poland, Russia and elsewhere who still believe in the idea of a national identity part of my ‘community’ than a two hundredth generation native of the British Isles who is contemptuous of any ideal beyond personal fame and wealth.

Picking Peers

On this particular issue I am forced to acknowledge a practical difficulty. In part because any argument presented could immediately be twisted round to argue that habitual criminals should be tried by juries of other habitual criminals. This seems to therefore be self-defeating.

The professional jury may, in some way, counter this. Create a group of people who genuinely uphold the community standards against which you must choose to be judged if you wish to be part of the British community. Regardless of your race, religion, gender, age or anything else, if you are willing to have your actions judged by an independent jury who still give value to the notions of justice, duty, loyalty, dignity and genuine liberty then I would be willing to stand alongside you.

Is it a problem?

This is a difficult one also, since, by law, jury deliberations are secret. However, the Ministry of Justice (I cringe every-time I write that… its only one step away from MiniPax), did commission a study into how juries deliberate.  The full paper can be found here;

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/research-and-analysis/moj-research/are-juries-fair-research.pdf

Without regurgitating large sections of this, it does have some interesting conclusions.  The main thing I took away from it was that most juries struggle with legal direction (only 30% of jurors understand the legal directions given to them), but on the whole juries give relatively fair results (they don’t discriminate based on ethnicity, age or gender).  One thing that is touted as a strength in this paper, but which concerns me personally, is that juries are noticeably more effective where there is significant physical evidence (for example drug possession). If juries can only reliably rule on cases where there is overwhelming physical evidence they don’t seem to bring much to the table. Cases involving ‘state of mind’ or what a ‘reasonable’ person would do have conviction rates between 30-40%, compared with 53% on average, and 80% for the “strong evidence” crimes.

Purely from the anecdotal side of things, here a few examples;

R v Stephen Young on 2 counts of murder; a conviction was overturned when it was discovered four jurors had tried to summon the ghost of one of the victims using an Ouija board, and had been directed to vote guilty by the spirits of the victims.

An Australian drugs trial was abandoned after 3 months after it was found out that a number of the jurors where spending their time in court doing Sudoku because the evidence being given bored them.

A juror on a grievous bodily harm trial was discharged after asking for the defendant’s star sign and date of birth so he could use astrology to determine guilt.

On a personal note (this was a friend of a friend, but its someone I know by name if not an actual acquaintance), I know of at least one juror who had his family threatened if he didn’t return a not guilty vote, and another acquaintance served on a jury, and reported that they spend at significant period of time between each case having to explain the concepts of innocence and that the jury can’t deliver sentencing.

While I accept there is not a raft of evidence pointing to juries being incompetent, it also seems very little research has been done into this area. Maybe if more digging is done on this it would reveal that juries do not, on the whole, convict or acquit on the basis of laws, and if that is the case, and decisions are based on social norms and personal perception, my concerns about peer-groups becoming all the more pressing.

Thanks again for your post, it’s stimulating to actually have to formulate a response, and I hope you’re doing well!

Thanks

/Z

 

Trial of the Peerless

Trial by jury is a cornerstone of the British judicial system, and one which heralds back (like a surprising number of traditions) to ancient Greece. In the Greek play Eumenides it is Athena herself who appoints a jury of 12 and declares that in the event of a split, the decision must be acquittal. It is not hard to see how this has, over centuries, factored into our own views on innocence-before-guilt, and perhaps even the composition of a jury itself. 

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But today we are confronted with a Jury which has fallen so far from the proverbial tree that they were required to ask a judge what a 'reasonable' doubt was, and more concerning, if a decision could be reached based on a reason that was not presented in court, and for which there is no factual basis. While I accept that the most likely explanation for the difficulties in the Vicky Pryce trail lie with a minority of jurors failing to grasp their role (an intractable 3 out of 12 would result in an inability to rule), the situation does neatly provide an opportunity to consider the role and nature of our juries.

Admittedly I am not the most unbiased of observers when it comes to the legal system of the United Kingdom, I learnt the basics of criminal proceedings at school age, pursued Law at A-levels, and briefly flirted with the idea of taking a degree in the subject. I am therefore, perhaps, not a sensible yardstick for an 'average' individual, and herein lies the core deficiency in the modern legal system.

As laws have become increasingly comprehensive and institutional the role of jury has changed from acquiring information and reaching a 'sensible' conclusion, to mapping an abstract and specifically defined legal concept into a real world situation. Legal knowledge, a strong grasp of the English language (and the extent to which it can be both bent and clarified), and a degree of abstract conceptualisation are now key requirements in a juror. With no selection process, and no minimum requirements, it is becoming increasingly likely that juror's lack the knowledge and ability to execute their roles appropriately.

Since presenting a problem without a solution would make me a democrat (in the words of Denny Crane), I will offer two such solutions.

Firstly; having been selected at random for jury service, each potential juror could be required to take a standardised test to ensure a level of English (spoken and written), and a core understanding of fundamental legal principles (such as the presumption of innocence) sufficient to undertake the role. While a counter-argument may be made that this would potentially exclude under-educated or non-English speaking segments of the population from the jury process, the only alternative seems to be to accept jurors knowing that they are unable to return a fair and reasoned verdict. Of the two evils, it seems that limiting the field is more in the defendant's favour - using the example of Ms Pryce's trial it seemed at least some of the jurors failed to grasp the concept that an individual is not required to defend themselves - they are innocent until their guilt is proven beyond all reasonable doubt.  As such I would argue that restricting possibly jurors to only those who know and understand the rights ascribed to a defendant can only benefit them, whereas introducing jurors who assume guilt (or apply a balancing test as in civil cases), would be prejudicial. Since a fundamental principle in our legal system is the primacy of the defendant, then minimum requirements for jurors is a (relatively) cheap and hopefully effective tool to reinforce our judicial system.

The second, more radical, option (and where would one of my posts be without radicalism), is to remove 'random' jury service, and make a professional jury service. Historically jurors were hereditary (it went hand in hand with certain other obligations of local nobles), and it can expected that they therefore received some form of training and initiation on how to conduct investigations and discussions. Likewise the experience built up over hundreds of trials is retained within the system. A professional jury service would provide an opportunity for jurors to gain a significant level of legal expertise (to enable them to better understand the interpret legal documents and evidence), and allow for 'specialisations'. One of the problems facing both defense and prosecution in complex fraud or other 'white collar crime' trials is the inability of the average jury to understand what the accused fraudster has actually done, or why its illegal, specialised "financial crimes" jurors would be able to build up the expertise needed to understand these cases, and make informed rulings.

The downside would be the potential monopoly on juries of certain segments of the population. It is easy to see how "juror" could simply become another middle-Britain profession along with accountants, architects, solicitors and engineers. This may lead to bias towards (or against) certain groups or crimes. While no system is perfect, it would seem some system of psychometric (or even MRI) testing to try and screen out the exceptionally biased would help combat this issue. Likewise, it is not immediately obvious that the bias would be towards guilt - after all plenty of legal graduates every year choose to pursue careers in defense to 'save the innocent' rather than prosecution. (I'm sure the larger salaries have nothing to do with it!).

 
Leaving aside the issue of how to acquire more qualified juries there is another point to consider here. The principle behind jury is "trail by your peers." In essence, you are judged by the community in which you are a part. This made sense in ancient Greece, where trials included potentially hundreds of jurors from the city in which you lived, it made sense in medieval and renaissance Europe where your 'jury' was made up of local free-man and nobles who probably knew you, your family, and were intimately acquainted with the local area. But is it still comparable to today's metropolitan world? Wiki estimates that 12% of the British population is not born in Britain. This figure quite possibly doubles if you include the children of non-British immigrants who have grown up in ethnically and culturally diverse communities. That could easily mean that the people who determine whether you spend the rest of your natural life in an 8 by 8 cell share neither your language, culture, religion nor history. Are these people truly a reflection of your "peers?". Likewise the medieval peasant or tradesman, tried by a group of other craftsmen and farmers, leads a broadly comparable life. Are the jet-set investment banker, the brain surgeon, the unemployed arts graduate and the median 'administration' worker truly 'peers' for one another?

I believe the answer to this is a firm "no". From a philosophical and ethical stand point I consider my entire worth is bound up in my knowledge, my experiences, the codes by which I lead my life, and by which I judge myself and others, and the decisions I freely make. Those codes and decisions are likewise bound up in my heritage, my culture and my shared history. Just as I would not insult those who lived through the struggles and triumphs of Russia's Great Patriotic War, or China's rebirth as the world's new super-power, or the war-swept ruins of Syria's collapse, by claiming to be their 'peers' I likewise take exception when those who claim to be mine without any understanding of the price and reward of unravelling reflexive thoughts, the emotional pride in nation which once defined an Empire, or the glory in a crystal cold winter night. Ultimately our motivations and actions are known only to ourselves, and if we judged ourselves more harshly, perhaps we would have less need of the traditional juries causing so many problems.

/Z

The Banking Crisis

 This is a bit less tongue in cheek, or even opinionated, than some of my other posts. The Banking Crisis was without a doubt one of the defining events of the first decade of the 21^st century. Its shadow still falls across discussions on politics, regulation, the role of the state, and economic theory. But despite that little evidence is publicly presented as to the causes of the crisis, or the long run costs it has incurred.  This is therefore an attempt to put some numbers on the costs to the taxpayers of ‘bailing out the banks’.

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A Note on Figures; The majority of this post is sourced from reports completed by the National Audit Office and the Treasury Select Committee, however, as a result of the this some of the figures are based around 2009-10 rather than 2010-11 or more recent.

Indirect and Cash

Stability was returned to the UK banking sector through two main mechanisms – direct (or cash) and indirect. Cash injections were used to buy shares and provide loans to (amongst others) Lloyds TSB, RBS, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. These ‘direct’ interventions cost real money in the here-and-now, and, assuming no more major impacts to the system, it is predominately these costs which will need to recovered or written off by H.M. Government.

Indirect costs took the form of guarantees and indemnities provided through three special purpose vehicles (The Asset Protection Scheme, Credit Guarantee Scheme and Special Liquidity Scheme). Although significantly larger than the cash costs to the Treasury, these ‘indirect’ costs are only crystallised in the event of further default or difficulty in the Banking sector.  Peaking at a potential exposure of nearly £1 trillion (Maintaining the financial stability of UK banks; update on the support schemes. National Audit Office, Dec 2010, reference 676, Key findings) the possible costs of these guarantees have fallen to an estimated £512 as at the end of 2010.

I’m largely going to ignore indirect costs from now on.  Reports from the Treasury and NAO seem to suggest these guarantees are not going to be required, and many of the schemes are looking to wind down by 2014 (et al). This reflects a wider truth that the banking sector suffered from a lack of liquidity and confidence, rather than necessarily a paper bankruptcy (this is especially true for Northern Rock which was in a stable position on paper, but a loss of confidence caused it to fail due to a cash flow problem). The government stepping in with the ‘big guns’ of unlimited asset guarantees restored confidence, reduced the need for immediate liquidity, and ended the problem.

Cash Costs

The total cash cost of the bank bailout was around £133 billion (et al, Summary (2)) this covered the purchase of shares in RBS and Lloyds, and cash loaned to banks wholly owned by the government at this point (predominately Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley). It also covers loans to various compensation schemes to cover client withdrawals.

These funds were not taken from other governmental budgets, but rather borrowed in their entirety. The National Audit Office puts the cost of servicing this debt at approximately £5 billion / year (or an annual interest rate of 3.76%). This on-going cost will exist as long as the loans and shareholdings remain outstanding.

From a practical perspective the bank bailout has therefore incurred a cash-flow cost of £5 billion per year, with the caveat that a future loss may be crystallised when the various share holdings are sold. This £5 billion forms approximately 11% of an annual interest bill of £46 billion (2012 Budget Executive Summary) or 0.7% of total government spending.

The likely losses incurred by a sell-off of the shares in RBS and Lloyds will depend entirely on the prevailing share price, and any pricing arrangements put in place to secure a buyer.  So, where does that leave us at present?

RBS

The calculation of the current value of the government’s holding in RBS is slightly complicated by the introduction of “B” shares in 2009. In addition to its holding of 65% of the ordinary shares in RBS, the Government also owns 39 billion “B” shares, created to allow a further injection of cash into the Bank without further ordinary share purchases. These B shares are valued at 50p each, receive a 250% preference dividend, and do not allow voting rights.

These “B” shares were issued at a value of 50p, which conveniently ties in with an approximate ‘buy in’ price for the government’s ordinary RBS shares of around 50p as well. All this means that while a line by line analysis of the government’s holdings is out of the scope of this post, we can get a reasonable estimate of the current position by comparing the current ordinary share price to 50p. Anything above would equate to gains come a sale, anything below a loss.

(Note; RBS had a 10:1 corporate action after the bailout, this means the ‘buy in’ prices for the government need to be multiplied by 10 if you want to compare to current prices).

At the current market price of £3.39, the government is facing a loss of 32%, or £17bn.

Lloyds

Luckily the Lloyds figures don’t seem quite so convoluted. The government bought a 41% stake in Lloyds for £21billion. This was entirely in ordinary shares, and therefore the published market capitalisation figure can be used to determine the value of a 41% stake. Using this approach a current value of £15.2billion, or a paper loss of just under £7bn is reached.

Options

The government seems to have several avenues on how to proceed with regards to its shareholdings. Although I’m going to provide some commentary on these, I’d highlight these are my own opinions, not quotes or paraphrasing from official sources.

1. SELL IT ALL!!
There is always the option for the government to just drop their holdings and get out now.  What this would actually do to the share price is troublesome, since it would almost inevitably precipitate a complete collapse in the already struggling shares, even assuming a buyer could be found. In practice this probably isn’t a realistic option.

2. Bit now, bit later

I’m putting this in for the sake of completeness, though it smacks more of a political move than an economic one. Selling off some of the holdings in the two banks would reduce the spectre of ‘state ownership’ and raise a bit of cash, but it would also lock in losses with comparably few tangible benefits.

3. Public-ize RBS

A rather radical move that was floated at one point was to just give the government’s shares to the taxpaying public. Probably a nice voter winner, but I have to agree with Vince Cable’s recent comments that this was unlikely to happen. Not only would this crystallise the full value of the bail out as a loss to the government, it would potentially hammer the share price when the markets become flooded with shares being sold by private investors.

4. Do nothing

Unless a single, large, buyer (such as a sovereign wealth fund) can be found, this is probably what’s going to happen. There is always the long run chance that the share price will recover, and once Lloyds and RBS find their feet they will begin paying dividends, which will largely go straight into the Treasury.  This is also what I’d personally advocate. Although both Lloyds and RBS have currently suspended paying a dividend while they repair their balance sheets and pay down liabilities, in the long run (it is an oft-quoted truth that shares should be held for at least 5-10 years), a return to dividend payments of around 4.6% (HSBC’s average yield), would both cover the costs of servicing the underlying debts incurred in purchasing the shares, and even offer a gradual net profit on the deal.

To Re-Cap

Just to bring all of these points together, and to provide a quick summary for use against the ranks of “Argh the government is collapsing because of the costs of propping up the banks,”

·         The Government provide around £133bn in cash to the banking sector.

·         That £133 billion was borrowed at an effective rate of around 3.75% per annum, incurring a servicing charge of £5 billion per annum.

·         For that investment the government got a stake in RBS and Lloyds which is currently worth around £24billion less than was paid for it.

·         That loss isn’t going to be crystallised any time soon since it looks improbable that a major sale of RBS or Lloyds will take place. As such the £24 billion is only a ‘paper’ loss.

If Today Were Year ZERO

Much is made, both in the media, and by people in general, about how the current social/economic predicament is caused by having to bail out the banks. What I hope the above has shown is that the actual, real, cash cost, of the banking crisis is currently around £5 billion a year. A fairly irrelevant figure compared to the £638 billion a year annual budget.

Another way of looking at this is that if all historic data, opinions and knowledge were wiped today, and then the government’s figures re-calculated based on outgoings and incomings today, the costs of the financial sector bailout would account for 11% of the national debt. While I would not try and claim 11% is immaterial, it means that 89% of the nation’s accumulated debt has to do with decisions unrelated to the bank bailout.

Seven Fat Cows, Seven Thin Cows

The concept of saving when things are good, to cover you when things go wrong has been around so long its spawned innumerable clichés. Never-the-less it’s a view which is largely ignored with regards to the financial sector. I’m going to wrap this analysis up by providing some figures to show that the financial sector provided far more in tax receipts than it eventually claimed in bail outs.

Unfortunately the readily available information available on the taxes paid by the financial sector only goes back to 2005/6. However, using this as a starting year, the tax receipts from PAYE and Corporation Tax (including the banking levy), as provided by HMRC (Pay-As-You-Earn and corporate tax receipts from the banking sector, august 2012, table 1), stand at £147 billion.

This figure alone covers the £133 billion cash bail out required, and that’s excluding the ‘boom years’ from the beginning of the 2000s through to 2005. While I don’t expect any government to simply sequester away huge parts of its tax take for the express purpose of then bailing out the economy when things turn sour, I do expect an acknowledgement that the government earned vast receipts from the financial industry throughout the boom years, and is still in a net position with regards to the banks.

Conclusion

In conclusion I’m going to reiterate a point that has run throughout this post. Financial costs can always be broken down into direct and indirect costs. However, much of commentary on the banking sector compares the theoretical ‘worst case’ scenario where all of the indirect costs materialise, with the immediate direct benefits (the £20 billion a year in tax the sector currently pays). Not only is this grossly unfair, it’s also completely misleading. Considering only the direct cash costs to the economy the bank bailout cost £5 billion a year. This is a trivial cost compared to the £120 billion a year spending deficit the current and previous government’s social and welfare policies have necessitated. Should the further £500 billion of contingent indirect costs be incurred we are envisaging a society where two huge corporations have been wiped out of existence taking all of their assets and holdings with them, where tens of thousands of business have gone bankrupt overnight, again without leaving behind any assets, and where entire cities worth of housing has vanished into holes in the ground. If we ever end up in that situation the problems of macro-economic government spending are going to be very, very, far down our list of priorities.

/Z

Nuclear Launch Detected

Britain's nuclear deterrent (Trident) is back on the list of 'hot topics' for the politicos. No new arguments have been introduced, no new figures provided, and no realistic alternative propositions proposed. Never-the-less the pro-nuke lobby once again has to defend Britain's final guarantee of its own independence. 

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In case anyone's not aware yet I'm very much pro-nuke. Nuclear weapons are, in the grand scheme of things, cheap, available and reliable. They have ushered in an almost unprecedented level of peace between the great nations of the world and limited conflicts to border squabbles or asymmetric conflicts.

But there are always detractors, and here's what they say;

Cost
What's most concerning about the cost of nuclear weapons is not the actual number, but how many people thing it’s vastly more than it actually is. I've talked to plenty of people who seem to be reasonable well informed who have some warped view that Trident takes up the vast majority of government spending, and it’s primarily spending on things like nuclear weapons which mean the bus services are underfunded and the education system is broken.

To set the record straight on this once and for all, the incumbent defence secretary recently priced Trident in at about 5-6% of the defence budget annually. Using the 2012 budget figures that’s about £2-£2.4 billion a year. That's a lot right? Well... yes and no... This is how that figure compares to some other areas of government spending on a per year basis;

£2 billion per year is:

4% of what we spend on debt interest
2.2% of spending on education
1.5% of the NHS' budget
*Less than 1% of welfare spending*

To put that last one in an alternative context, Trident delivers a 'gold standard' second strike, continuously-at-sea, ballistic missile system, creates around 7,000 jobs in the UK, supports significant investment in British naval companies and infrastructure... all for less than 0.3% of the total annual budget or less than 1% of what we, as a country, spend in welfare benefits.

Useless Weapons
For those perhaps unwilling to try and argue the costing of Trident, an alternative line of enquiry presents itself - to claim that nukes don't do anything, and therefore we don't need them. You can't prove that nuclear weapons are necessary because by their very nature they are preventative. It is difficult to find evidence of things that didn't happen.

This point then splits into two strands, 1.) We can't nuke the kind of enemies we are currently fighting, 2.) We wouldn't end up in a situation where we would want to nuke the people we can nuke.

So in turn,

1.) Nuking Somali Pirates
 Nuclear weapons are by their nature the strategic super-weapon of industrial warfare. They are designed and intended to wipe countries off the map, not specific people. In the current world of asymmetric warfare nukes are pretty useless.  You can't respond to five guys with an AK-47 in a $100 speedboat kidnapping some bank manager from Tunbridge Wells by wiping out half of sub-Saharan Africa (or at least you can but it would be somewhat overkill).

This argument holds water, in that it shows we shouldn't rely on nuclear weapons to the exclusion of everything else. But, you know what? We don't! Our nuclear arsenal only accounts for 5% of our defence spending, and we have plenty of other toys to deal with the current problems. If those alternative assets are proving insufficient that may be an argument in favour of increasing special forces funding or drone strike facilities, but it doesn't touch on industrial state total war in the slightest.

2.) We don't want to nuke Washington
The second argument is that why have nukes (designed to flatten industrial nations) when there aren't any industrial nations we are likely to be fighting? Although it might not look like it on the surface, this is actually one of the most compelling arguments in favour of nukes.  Remember - nukes are about STOPPING wars, not winning them. This is doubly true for systems like Trident which are intended, and touted as Second Strike (for those not familiar with Cold War terminology, First Strike weapons were intended to destroy an opponent's population, military and industrial centres, and completely annihilate their own nuclear weapons, both any retaliation could be mounted. Second Strike was designed to be able to respond regardless of the devastation caused by a First Strike weapon. Trident is very simple in this respective, at any given time we have at least one nuclear armed submarine on patrol somewhere in the world's ocean. It really doesn't matter how totally you wipe out Britain, that submarine will eventually get to you, and when it does you get wiped out in return.)

Instead of looking at the here-and-now in a vacuum, consider why we don't want to go around nuking other countries? Because since 1945 the nuclear armed powers of the world have known they have to work together. For thousands of years countries always had the option to just call up their troops and go quash someone over the border. That age of the world has ended (or at least between nuclear armed powers). Does anyone seriously think that without the threat of nuclear confrontations the US and Soviets would have avoided a war? Or the Soviets and Chinese? Or how about a resurgent British Empire, still basking in post-war territorial acquisitions and without the threat of nuclear weapons?

Europe has enjoyed seventy years of genuine peace. You can put this down to the EU, or the League of Nations, or everyone just being nice chaps. You can also put it down to the fact that a third great war in Europe would have ended up in a nuclear fireball extending from Poland to Wales that no one wanted. In practice it was probably a bit of all of those factors, but don't for a second dismiss the role played by nuclear weapons.

Ahh yes! Cry the disarmament committees, but now that we have stopped fighting, we are all getting along like good buddies, why keep the weapons? They've done their job, now lets stop paying for them. The counterfactual to this is fairly simple, and what happens when only one person is left with nukes? At that point what's to stop the wars happening all over again? Long shot? Maybe... worth spending a third of a per cent of our tax revenue on? I'd say yes.

(And just to consider - is human history really resplendent with examples of cultures, countries and peoples taking a step back from war just because they got along 30 years ago?)

Alternatives
As ever some people try to hedge. They want nuclear capabilities, but not something as ""expensive"" as Trident (no doubt so they can then go on to increase unemployment benefits by another half % above inflation to buy votes). The current front run seems to be some kind of Cruise missile system. I'm going to put it out there and say that sucks.

I found an estimate of Cruise at £5 billion, or a saving of £15 billion over the 10 year procurement cycle. That £1.5 billion a year represents about 3.75% of the defense budget, or 0.2% of the total government budget. Whether you consider that significant or not I supposedly depends on which areas of government spending you consider sacrosanct. Delivering a cost saving of 1% on the welfare budget would deliver bigger absolute savings, as would a 1.2% cost saving in the welfare budget. Personally I think a 1% saving in welfare seems more reasonable than a 75% reduction in the nuclear budget. Given this, along with the points above under 'Cost' I'd argue that the £15bn, over a 10 year cycle in which our government will spend  £6,380 billion is neither here nor there.

In terms on functionality then what are we losing?

The first is a continuous-at-sea resource, a Cruise replacement would only put to sea under normal operational conditions, and at times all nuclear armed submarines would be in dock simultaneously. This reduces the system as a credible threat to a rational opponent, and opens the door to a First Strike weapon capable of eliminating Britain, and her nuclear arsenal, without the risk of retaliation.
 Again, how 'likely' this is to occur is open to dispute, though where the country being wiped out in a nuclear attack is concerned I'm inclined to err on the side of certainty.

Next up Cruise itself is more open to being intercepted and 'shot down' than a like-for-like functionality with Trident. This is a similar problem to the point above, the more confident an opponent is that they can counter our Second Strike; the more likely they are to launch a First Strike. Is that risk really worth such a neglible cost saving?

The final point is an interesting one about ''accidently'' starting a nuclear war. One of the biggest worries about nuclear war is the pace it happens at. World War 2 took seven years, for at least 2 of which is was pretty obvious what the outcome would be. Iraq has been dragging on for 11 years. Leaders in these conflicts could take hours, even days, to formulate a response. The decision to retaliate against a nuclear strike may have to be taken in minutes, even seconds, and at those speeds there is a risk of it going wrong. Cruise increases that risk by making it difficult for a nuclear adversary to distinguish between a conventional Cruise missile with an explosive warhead, and a nuclear Cruise missile. Therefore, in the few seconds before impact, a leader may incorrectly assume a nuclear strike and respond in kind. Trident isn't entirely free from this risk, but at least the use of specific missiles and delivery systems, openly known by the other nuclear powers, reduces the risks of 'accidents'.

As a replacement then Cruise is less reliable, more prone to bringing about accidental nuclear war, and delivers a cost saving sufficient to keep the NHS running for 4 days a year. Hardly impressive.