Britain should scrap its 'pointless' Trident submarines and build its own version of Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system, Peter Hitchens has argued.

Speaking on the latest Alas Vine & Hitchens podcast, the longstanding Mail on Sunday columnist questioned the cost effectiveness of the UK's nuclear deterrent. 

Trident is due to expire in the 2040s, with the current fleet of Vanguard-class submarines set to be retired in the early 2030s.

The missiles onboard are good for an additional decade so they will be loaded on to a new fleet of Dreadnought subs that are currently under construction at Barrow-in-Furness at an estimated cost of £31billion.  

The proposed cost of replacing Trident has been estimated at between £20billion and £34billion - although the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has put the figure as high as £205bn. 

Hitchens said: 'An Iron Dome costs billions, but do you know how much Trident renewal costs? 

'I mean, if you pile up all the money in the country to a height the size of Everest, it wouldn't pay for Trident renewal, which in any case won't work, and in any case, it's pointless. To me it's a dead loss.'

The UK retired its last air-dropped nuclear bombs in 1998, leaving Trident as the nation's sole nuclear capability.

The Iran and Ukraine conflicts have highlighted the power of modern drone warfare and Hitchens now says Britain would be better served by an Israel-style Iron Dome anti-missile defence, supplemented by a few additional freefall bombs.

'I mean, we have a couple of aeroplanes and a couple of bombs, which we can tell people we'll drop on them if needs be would be fine for me,' he said. 

'If you've got a really good defence in the sky, then you have transformed the position at once. Look at the problem that Russia has at the moment.'  

Hitchens believes that western powers are using the conflict in Ukraine to launch a proxy war against Russia - drastically increasing the risk of Russian attacks against European capitals.  

He said: 'The Ukraine is being used, in my view, by the Western nations basically as a launch pad for using long-range missiles to destroy high-value targets, such as oil refineries, very deep in Russia, which I doubt very much whether Ukrainian intelligence even knows where they are, or could conceivably do this by itself. 

'And so you basically have a Western war being conducted against Russia without anybody declaring war or with any state of war existing.  

'Now there is a point at which it's possible the Russians will snap, and they will, they knowing perfectly well where all this is really coming from, they might start using their undoubted missile strength in against NATO capitals, including ours. 

'Then, where are we at the moment? We're absolutely nowhere. If we have an Iron Dome, then we are not none of these things is perfect, but they are, they're extremely good. Then you have at least a very strong possibility that you'll do.'

Elsewhere in the episode Hitchens discussed his solitary appearance on topical panel show Have I Got News For You. 

'The time I went on, the makers were under some pressure because it was so virulently left wing,' he said.

'What you discover is it's scripted, but you aren't as the guest, so you have to think fast on your feet.

'I was completely foxed, I think that's the politic way of putting it, by one of the other panellists, a woman called Clarissa Dixon Wright, who you may remember as one of the Two Fat Ladies.

'She basically ate the programme, she just put it on a plate, got her a knife and fork, and swallowed it whole. 

'She devoted about 25 minutes to try to perpetrate an immense defamation against a leading member of the government, which, of course, all had to be cut out. 

'I remember Ian Hislop saying to me, "Do you know anything about this? And I said, 'No, but I know a lot about the laws of libel." 

I had three good jokes, two of which they cut, and one of which they screen, and I was never asked back.' 

Hitchens credits the show with making a political star out of Boris Johnson, who went on to become Prime Minister from July 24, 2019 to September 6, 2022.  

'Now, imagine how different history could have been if it had been me rather than that "Al" Johnson character who became the star of How I Got News for You,' Hitchens joked.   

'The whole of British history would be different. I always believed that it was Have I Got News for You which made Johnson into a major political figure and propelled him into Downing Street.'