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Neither would I, but detterrence theory doesn't work on that basis. Basically the second they launch they've failed. Nuclear weapons are based on the fact that the Chinese Govt won't risk a nuclear attack or blackmailing the UK Govt with the threat of nuclear weapons. The most effective sword is the one that never leaves its sheath.
Which seems like an argument that nuclear detterrence works
Again - you seem to think the idea of nuclear weapons is to use them. It isn't. The use of nuclear weapons is not to use them.
By the time you include security, building the bunker, the maintenance needed to keep them safe or usable, people trained to use them etc, etc, there is no real saving - that's why there being replaced. Its not to get a new super, duper bomb, but because these ones will be worn out and need to be replaced. A deterrent doesn't deter if it doesn't work.
The most effective sword doesn't obliterate the vast majority of the world's population and cause utter destruction of the environment, if it is used, accidentally or purposefully.
So if China launched a nuclear attack designed to wipe out the UK's population, would you want to respond with the same? The argument that nukes exist so you never have to use them just doesn't click with me - if you believe that people in positions of power in nuclear nations would want to wipe Britain off the map (with all the damage that would do their country) if it didn't have nuclear weapons...well I'd say they were insane and spiteful enough to do it if Britain did have nuclear weapons.
If we disarmed and China threatened us with nuclear weapons (for what?) I'd advise the Prime Minister to laugh in their face. Its not a plausible threat. If all thats keeping nuclear powers from threatening other countries with nukes is MAD then why aren't all the other countries in the world without nukes being constantly threatened/annexed by nuclear powers?
I'm really struggling with your argument - because you are thinking off nuclear weapons as if they were tactical rather than a strategic weapon of last resort. To say a country would never use them against the UK would rather depend on the circumstances wouldn't it?
Now I don't think China is going to say give us £100m in Gold or we take out Glasgow. But I can quite easily see a scenario where economic competition between China and the West leads to armed conflict and as part of that China threatens to use nukes (say to get British troops out of our ally South Korea). Us having nukes a) makes this type of high level conflict more unlikely in the first place b) if it happens means that threats to use nuclear weapons are less likely.
I'd say peace in Europe since 1945 is a testament to nuclear weapons deterrence factor.
Well, nuclear weapons are tactical depending on who you are. For instance, if you are a terrorist group they are a tactical weapon. Also, the US has spent a lot of money in developing tactical "mini-nukes" which it does not rule out using in a conventional war (and are presumably now part of their battle plans).
If we did get into a full scale war with China then perhaps there would be an argument for a nuclear deterrent: but we are not, and we want to avoid that. I don't think peace in Europe since 1945 is attributable to nuclear weapons, just as I don't think peace in Europe during the nineteenth century was.
This is a difficult argument to have, because neither of us know the highest and most secret level stuff that goes on (for instance between the UK and China). How close we might have come in the past...
...and if I'm right, I'll only have 0.04 seconds to feel smug before my brain evaporates into a billion pieces of radioactive dust.