Mo Farah sums up my attitude to nuclear power – and, once again, it comes with my get-out-of-jail-free card: situational ethics!

I mention Mo Farah because he very quickly put one of the human faces onto Donald Trump’s crazy Muslim ban last weekend. He says he was not banning Muslims from coming into the country. That’s true. He was only banning people from some of the greatest Islamic countries in the world.

Well – some of them, anyway. Obviously he didn’t ban people from countries where he did business even though terrorists’ atrocities on American soil had been carried out by people from the very countries he left out of his crazy scheme.

Mo Farah put the face to the story when he worried that he would not be able to get back to his family in the USA.

It is easy to have an opinion on something – even a strong opinion – as long as it doesn’t involve you personally.

We might agree that this country can’t afford to take any more refugees, for instance. We might agree that we should cancel foreign aid and spend it on our needs, with the NHS being top of the list.

Fine in theory. But what would you do if a starving refugee knocked on your door and asked for help? I bet you wouldn’t turn them away and neither would I.

Which is how I feel about nuclear power.

I admire Jeremy Corbyn for his ethics and his humanitarian stance on so many issues. I admire him for his concern for the environment.

But could he not just have lied a little when he refused to say whether he supported the creation of a new nuclear power station at Moorside?

Why can’t he be more like me?

I hate nuclear. I lived too long in nuclear-free New Zealand to have any other opinion. Attitudes there were hardened when the Greenpeace boat, Rainbow Warrior – which was on its way to protest against a French nuclear test – was sunk by undercover agents. One man drowned when it was blown up.

There was more anger when the two operatives responsible were handed back to France by the New Zealand government in what was often thought to be a trade deal.

When I came here, then, I was quite perturbed to find I was living on the doorstep of the biggest and oldest nuclear power station in the country.

But Sellafield and Moorside are those two hungry refugees knocking on my door and turning the nuclear debate into something far more personal than I ever wanted.

How many stories have I done about Forth Engineering – a small engineering firm near me which is punching so far above its weight it is incredible. It has been responsible for machinery that can explore the depths of the Antarctic sea and robotic arms that can withstand everything. It is an amazing little place, growing bigger by the minute, and all because it has adapted to serve the needs of the nuclear industry.

How many of my friends have children who are working within the nuclear industry while being put through university with guaranteed jobs at the end?

How many people have not been forced to leave their homes because, despite being stripped of much other industry, West Cumbria has been able to retain its nuclear station?

Dear Mr Corbyn, if you are going to become the next Prime Minister, and if Labour wins the Copeland by-election, could you try not be so hung up on truth and ethics? Goodness knows we live in a world where they are probably needed more than ever before. But stop looking at the big picture and narrow your gaze.

How many people would be out of work here if there was no nuclear industry?

Take a lesson from Donald – he has no ethics at all and he’s doing pretty well for himself!