Katherine Hudson, CND, on why we're 100 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock

Kate Hudson has been General Secretary of CND since 2010, having served as chair since 2003. She first became active in the peace movement in the early 1980s in the big upsurge of activity against cruise missiles. One of her proudest moments was helping to Embrace the Base at Greenham Common in December 1982, along with 30,000 other women. With the end of the Cold War, like many others, Kate felt that the issue of nuclear weapons had gone away, so she turned to other campaigning work. But by the mid-1990s with expansion of NATO and escalation of the US ‘Star Wars’ system, she came back into CND activity and into CND’s leadership just as the ‘war on terror’ was beginning. She has been a key figure in the anti-war movement nationally and internationally and considers international cooperation and solidarity to be the key to our ultimate success. By profession a historian, Kate was Head of Social and Policy Studies at London South Bank University prior to working for CND. She is author of a number of books, including a history of CND. LYRICS TO THE SONG: Ordinary people feel under attack And that the enemies invisible they can't fight back So they focus on an issue that's important to them But they forget about the worst thing that could happen to men Global warming's irritating like a splinter Compared to hunkering down for a nuclear winter Don't let politicians blind you with their commotion When you see missiles flying over that's one issue you'd vote on Make nuclear disarmament the thing you're locked on By asking all your leaders where they stand on the bomb Cos if the bombs go off No other issues matter If the bombs go off Your life will be in tatters If the bombs go off You'll wish that you'd acted before If the bombs go off There's no way to vote them back If the bombs go off Your world is going black If the bombs go off Your overriding emotion will be regret Only 9 countries have nuclear weapons But any single one of them could end us in seconds One determined hacker and security breach A single crazy president with a button in reach An angry dictator who won't be disarmed Some kind of malfunction that sets off an alarm So many scenarios can't think of them all Of course the one that you forget would be the fate we befall The odds are all long but the risk is so high And there's no way back, once they're all up in the sky Cos if the bombs go off No other issues matter If the bombs go off Your life will be in tatters If the bombs go off You'll wish that you'd acted before If the bombs go off There's no way to vote them back If the bombs go off Your world is going black If the bombs go off Your overriding emotion will be regret Nuclear war could lead to social improvement With equal opportunity and freedom of movement Freedom of speech would be a forgotten obsession When you're pushing round a shopping cart with all your possessions There'd be no discrimination or judging by race After a massive a fireball has burnt off your face Cos if the bombs go off No other issues matter If the bombs go off Your life will be in tatters If the bombs go off You'll wish that you'd acted before If the bombs go off There's no way to vote them back If the bombs go off Your world is going black If the bombs go off Your overriding emotion will be regret