Eighty years on, Hiroshima's lessons are lost on Starmer

Three-year-old Shinichi Tetsutani was riding his beloved yellow tricycle when the atom bomb exploded over Hiroshima. He died that night from his injuries. His heartbroken father, Nobuo, buried Shinichi's body in the backyard, along with the tricycle, so that he could ride it even after his death.

- CAROLINE LUCAS

You can still see the skeletal form of that tricycle today, preserved now in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, after Nobuo decided to place Shinichi's remains in the family grave. It is just one of many haunting reminders of the day that normal life came to an instantaneous halt - incinerated, devastated - 80 years ago yesterday. I visited this week while attending the commemorations in my role as vice-president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Despite all we know about the events which unfolded, first in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and three days later in Nagasaki, nothing prepares you for the horror of being in this city, hearing stories directly from the few remaining first-generation Hibakusha - the survivors of the atomic bombs who for years have suffered from radiation sickness, psychological trauma as well as stigma and discrimination.

It is a horror that is compounded by the fact that the world's nine declared nuclear-armed states have amassed a firepower equivalent to 145,000 Hiroshima bombs - enough to destroy the world many times over.

But that, apparently, is not enough. In the UK, Keir Starmer recently announced plans to spend an additional £15bn on developing submarine-launched nuclear warheads, as well as the purchase of F-35A fighters to enable the UK to reintroduce air-launched nuclear weapons. It brings the prospect of nuclear war measurably closer - all in the name of making Britain, in his words, “a battle-ready, armour-clad nation”.