gordon brown

In his latest bid to be a global leader on climate change, Gordon Brown has pledged to attend the UN talks in Copenhagen this December. Along with Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, who has also said he may attend, it means the global campaign to get presidents, prime ministers and chancellors along to the summit are starting to pay off.

It's been a long time since there were polar bears at London Zoo, but the famous attraction still houses many other species which are threatened by the effects of climate change. So I can't help but wonder whether this fact registered with Gordon Brown (himself an endangered species) as he stood up at the zoo to present his blueprint for a global climate action plan.

Martin Butcher gives his reaction to the Prime Minister's recent policy speech on the future of Britain's nuclear arsenal. Martin is a consultant on international security issues and a Nato policy analyst for the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy. This article first appeared in Comment is Free on 17th March.

Gordon Brown's speech today at Lancaster House exposed a fundamental contradiction at the heart of government policy on non-proliferation. The prime minister sees the importance of a world free of nuclear weapons because it is the only way of guaranteeing "that our children and grandchildren will be free from the threat of nuclear war". And yet, his government is committed to the development of a new generation of submarine-based nuclear weapons to replace Trident, thus maintaining Britain's status as a nuclear weapons state for half a century.