SPRING is here. It arrived yesterday. I state that at the head of this column less to confirm winter's retreat from its last, late attack than to deliver the strongest counterblast at my command to the Big Brother-style brainwashing of recent years that would have us believe spring starts on March 1. It doesn't and never did. March 20 is the date that has been recognised through centuries. Hail spring – sweetest season of the year, stirring hope for renewal in us all.

But is there spring, one wonders, on any of the planets to which the late Prof Stephen Hawking looked forward to the human race colonising? Probably not. In any case Prof Hawking’s idea that we might all shift, lock, stock and the family pet, to a hoped for Arcadia thousands, if not millions, of light years away, to perpetuate human life after we have rendered it unsustainable on Earth seems some way from being a goer.

But in the wake of Prof Hawking’s death a question perhaps worth asking is who does space, the focus of Prof Hawking’s life, belong to? Of course the first humans on the moon left a plaque stating: “We came in peace for all mankind.” So do we all share ownership of space and its planets?

It sometimes seems so. Richard Branson is planning space trips. On whose authority? In what must qualify as the ultimate vanity project so far, a billionaire has just blasted a car into space, its satnav set for Mars. (One is tempted to write that the wrong people have all the money.)

Now, Vodaphone and Nokia are about to install phone masts on the moon. Intended to establish a communications network ahead of possible human occupation, the project will be the first privately-funded moon mission. Who gives the nod for that?

The moon is the most beautiful object seen throughout our world. Its appearance remains one of virginal purity. But I feel sorry for it. The empty vastness that once separated us from the moon is now littered with our junk. The moon’s fate is to get its own.

How is it possible to be enthusiastic, as Prof Hawking was, about the human race venturing beyond its own planet? We will take with us our polluting habits and, no doubt at all, our warring ways.

Prof Hawking’s concept of the human race making a fresh beginning elsewhere is at best a fantasy – at worst a vision of advancing degradation. Our survival should come by reforming ourselves here – cleaning up our act and truly learning to live in peace. Where purity exists elsewhere we should leave it alone.

PERHAPS the most frightening thing about the nerve gas attack in Salisbury is that the teams deployed to tackle it represent the entire response available even against a major attack.

Back in 2011 it’s unlikely many of us took much, if any, notice of the disbandment of the military’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment.

But we should have done. As its former commander says: “These weapons are now a fact of life.” The government is now urgently considering re-forming the regiment. Corporal Jones can be heard: “Don’t panic, don’t panic.” But they are.