‘Letters of last resort’: deciding response to a nuclear attack among first of Starmer’s tasks

HMS Vengeance at Faslane in Scotland. The Vanguard class vessel can be armed with Trident nuclear missiles. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Sometime soon after entering Downing Street as prime minister, Keir Starmer will be briefed on the deadly capability of Britain’s nuclear deterrent – and asked to consider what instructions to give Trident submarine commanders in the unlikely event the UK is destroyed in an all-out attack and he is among the millions killed.

In the aftermath of an election victory, it is a sobering moment. Tony Blair is described as having gone “quite quiet” just over a quarter of a century ago when asked to handwrite four identical “letters of last resort” to the commanders in the event that the UK no longer in effect exists.