Stephen, in what part of the cosmos are you living?

Earlier this year Obama described his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, so the idea of multilateral nuclear disarmament is not as far from the mainstream as you might imagine.

Obviously this is a process. In the beginning cynics like yourself will throw their hands in the air and barrack from the sidelines. But crucially you will fail to provide any intellectually coherent opposition. Typically you will simply claim the idea to be silly, naive, pointless and so on. This will work for a short time.

But increasingly, calmer minds ponder the issue and think, ‘why not?’, and the idea will gain momentum.

The cynics’ cries of ‘what is the point… get real’ will begin to fade. There will be an attempt to find an intellectual justification for the status quo. But this will come too late.

And with time, the change will come to pass. We just have to hope that people learn to ignore the cynics sooner rather than later.

What is the point, Stephen, in putting forward notions which have even less chances than that of a snowball in hell? For goodness sake, get real!