I Changed My Mind on Banning the Bomb, But the Threat of Nuclear War Is Growing—And So Is Complacency

Toynbee’s father, a CND founder who didn’t expect his family to survive nuclear war, carried ‘a large bottle of suicide pills, enough to kill us all when the bomb fell, to save us from slowly perishing by strontium-90.’ Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope produced by nuclear explosions that causes severe radiation sickness, leading to an agonizing death over weeks or months. Her father’s suicide pills represented a grim calculation: rather than endure radiation poisoning’s excruciating effects—including hemorrhaging, organ failure, and immune system collapse—he would spare his family through quick death. This detail powerfully illustrates how seriously her generation took the nuclear threat, treating nuclear war not as abstract possibility but imminent reality requiring concrete preparation.

Nye Bevan, a prominent Labour politician, argued against unilateral nuclear disarmament by warning the party not to send a Labour foreign secretary ‘naked into the conference chamber’—meaning Britain would have no negotiating leverage in international diplomacy without nuclear weapons. This metaphor suggests that nuclear weapons function as diplomatic clothing or protection, providing bargaining power in negotiations with nuclear-armed adversaries. Without them, Britain would be vulnerable and powerless in global affairs. Toynbee cites this to explain why unilateral disarmament ‘always blighted Labour’s chances’ electorally: voters feared it would weaken Britain’s international position. The phrase encapsulates the realist argument that idealistic disarmament leaves a nation defenseless in a dangerous world governed by power politics rather than moral principle.

The phrase ‘longest suicide note in history’ refers to Labour’s 1983 election manifesto under Michael Foot’s leadership, which combined unilateral nuclear disarmament with a pledge to leave the Common Market (European Economic Community). This combination was considered electoral suicide because it alienated both working-class voters concerned about national security and middle-class voters worried about economic isolation. The manifesto’s comprehensive left-wing platform was politically fatal, resulting in Labour’s devastating defeat. Toynbee uses this historical example to illustrate how unilateralism damaged Labour’s electoral prospects, eventually forcing Neil Kinnock to abandon the policy before the 1992 election. The ‘suicide note’ metaphor suggests the manifesto guaranteed Labour’s political death—fittingly ironic in an article about actual suicide pills and nuclear annihilation.

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This article is rated Intermediate because while it addresses complex political and moral questions about nuclear weapons, it does so through accessible personal narrative and clear argumentation. The vocabulary includes some sophisticated terms (unilateralism, proliferation, sabre-rattling) but these are generally understandable from context. Toynbee’s memoiristic approach—vivid childhood memories, protest songs, family anecdotes—provides concrete grounding for abstract policy debates. However, the article assumes some familiarity with British political history (CND, Labour manifestos, Nye Bevan) and Cold War context (mutually assured destruction, Cuban missile crisis). The intermediate rating reflects this balance: substantive engagement with nuclear ethics and geopolitics presented through personal testimony that makes complex issues accessible to educated general readers without specialized background in defense policy.

Polly Toynbee is a prominent Guardian columnist and one of Britain’s best-known left-wing commentators. Her authority on nuclear disarmament derives from direct personal experience: her father was a 1957 founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and she participated in the Aldermaston marches from age 11 throughout her youth. This gives her both insider knowledge of the anti-nuclear movement and longitudinal perspective spanning decades of debate. Her credibility comes not from technical expertise but from embodying the generational journey from anti-nuclear activism to reluctant realism—a trajectory ‘many of us took’ (referencing Neil Kinnock’s similar evolution). As a journalist who has covered British politics for decades, she can contextualize current nuclear threats within historical patterns while acknowledging her own ideological shifts with intellectual honesty that strengthens rather than undermines her moral authority.

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