There is something deliciously morally simple about nuclear weapons. So destructive, so indiscriminate, so gruesome are they that their use is one of the few things about which we can say simply, "it is a categorical and indefensible evil." Under no circumstances should nuclear weapons ever be used.

The next step should then be easy. If there is truly no moral justification for using nuclear weapons, we will not use them, and thus must decommission them.

Alas, it is not so easy, as friends of the late Sir Michael Quinlan can testify. Quinlan was a devout and courageous Catholic, nicknamed "the Jesuit", who spent much of his 40-year career working for the Ministry of Defence and was a major architect of Britain's nuclear deterrence policy. Although a courteous and instinctively diplomatic man, he was an outspoken critic of the second Iraq war and of Tony Blair's "sofa" government.

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