Kim has a bomb. No need for panic – just fire up the Roman candles

It was a tremendous week for the glorious leader of the Workers’ Revolution Party, who, using cunning and guile, stunned the world by taking three days to reorganize his Cabinet.

Meanwhile, in North Korea, another glorious leader of another Workers’ Revolution Party went one stage further and, in a deep pit near the Chinese border, set off a hydrogen bomb.

Or did he? North Korea’s Fiona Bruce, who delivers her news bulletins by shouting while wearing a nylon baby-doll ballgown, certainly seemed to think so. She said the country had successfully detonated an H-bomb, and then, after a short commercial break in which stirring music was shown over a fetching picture of Kim Jong-Corbyn, she announced that America was an imperialist dog. Only less delicious.

Naturally, all the Western leaders were very cross about this new development. ‘We are very cross about this,’ said Philip Hammond, Britain’s Foreign Secretary. Chinese leaders were cross too, because the blast had caused cracks to appear in a school playground on their side of the border.

And that, really, is when the penny started to drop. ‘Hang on,’ thought the world’s experts. ‘If this really was a hydrogen bomb, then surely it would have caused more damage than cracks in a school playground.’ ‘Yes,’ said the world’s seismologists. ‘It caused only a very small shudder. Our needles would have rocked more if a fatty such as Kim Jong-un had fallen down the stairs.’

At this stage it’s important to understand the difference between a simple atomic bomb – the sort that was dropped on Japan towards the end of the Second World War – and the much more fearsome hydrogen bomb, which uses a normal atomic explosion to trigger a far larger, thermonuclear reaction.

Russia has set off a thermonuclear bomb with the explosive force of 50 million tons of TNT. Detonate one of those a thousand feet above London and the windows in Cairo would rattle. Whereas North Korea’s bomb only managed to crack a school playground a hundred miles or so away. Boffins are saying it was a device of about six kilotons, which in the West is known as a ‘firework’.

As a tool for scaring its enemies into acquiescence, then, Fatty-un’s bomb is about as effective as a pair of slippers. But then along came a former British ambassador to North Korea, who told the Daily Mail that this was just the start. He said that if the bomb could be made to work, and that if it could be militarized so that it would fit into a missile, and that if that missile could be loaded into a submarine, then Jong-un’s glorious navy could sail undetected through the Solent and, with no warning at all, damage school playgrounds all the way from Ringwood to Buckler’s Hard.

That sounds very terrifying, but there are a lot of ‘if’s, chief among which is this submarine business. We were told last year that North Korea had indeed launched a non-nuclear test missile from a sub, but it later emerged that actually it had been from a submerged barge.

The North Korean navy appears to be not very good. It runs two fleets, one on the west coast and one on the east. This is because the vessels it has are not capable of getting from one side of the country to the other. When it stages manoeuvres, one or two ships usually sink.

Some, however, sink on purpose. These are submarines. Mostly they are tiny little things that have been abandoned by most navies for being completely useless. But there is talk that North Korea has built itself a much bigger vessel based on a 1960s Yugoslavian design.

Hmmm. I once flew across Cuba in a 1950s Russian aircraft that had spent most of its life in the Angolan air force, and that was pretty ropy.

But a Yugoslavian-designed submarine that was built in North Korea. It’s hard to think of anything less likely to work. Especially after the chef has loaded up the larder with several dozen excitable spaniels.

Let’s say, however, that it does. And let’s say that they manage to fit it with a tube from which this thermonuclear missile can be fired. Does anyone seriously think it’ll be able to sail all the way from the Sea of Japan to the Solent without being detected?

It runs on diesel power, which means it has to stay on the surface most of the time. And what are people on cruise liners and cargo ships going to say when it burps and belches its way past them? ‘Ooh, look, a big dead whale with a weird metal erection.’

This is what the world always seems to forget when it comes to nuclear weapons. You may be able to build one, but then you have the problem of getting it to explode over the city of your choice.

During a recent bout of tension between India and Pakistan, I asked an Indian chap if his country’s nuclear missiles would be capable of hitting Islamabad. ‘I’m not even sure they could hit Pakistan,’ he replied.

We saw only recently four Russian cruise missiles sailing over their targets in Syria and landing hundreds of miles away in Iran. And somehow we are expected to believe that North Korea is on the verge of developing a missile that can be fired from underwater and will then guide itself to Wilton Avenue in Southampton.

Well, I don’t, which is why I sniggered when Philip Hammond responded to Fatty-un’s underground firework explosion by saying he would be pushing for a robust response.

What form will that take? A strongly worded letter? Or is he saying we should order one of our subs to wipe Pyongyang off the map? I suppose we can take comfort from this: at least we have a choice. If Comrade Corbyn ever gets into the hot seat and Trident is abandoned, we won’t.

10 January 2016