http://www.no-bomb.com/index2.html
Wow! So the Government want to spend £76 Billion, yes, Billion pounds on a new generation of nuclear missiles to replace the aging (and never needed to be used) Trident weapons system.
And what would the return to the UK tax payer be? What would be the return to the UK economy? How would it help with our global responsibility to reduce carbon emmission and find alternative energy sources for an ever growing and demanding global population?
Here is a thought.
£26bn would build the Severn Barrage from Minhead to Aberthaw and it would generate approx 10% of the entire UK electricity need. Yes there would be changes in the habitats behind the barrage, but lets face it, with Global Warming and Climate Change now recognised as a reality, we are going to see those habitats destroyed anyway unless the Government suddenly has a change of heart in it's flood defence policy (ie puts the money back into the EA and re-employes the 15% of staff being made redundent across the board).
That would still leave £50bn to invest in habitats, rail and road infrastructure, R&D in other environmental/sustainable energy technologies, new schools, hospitals, public services(!) and a host of other much, much more worthy causes.
Or, £76bn to help shore up the American defense industry (Lockheed Martin)? Hum.......
See, there are alternatives.
There are different choices that can be made.
Gordon.....wake up....make different choices.
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Given the fact that Iranians are in revolt over petrol rationing in an oil producing monster, it's clear that nuclear power and missile technology does seem to require enormous and inordinate investments of political energy to the detriment of any wider overview of needs and priorities.
Matthew Parris summed up the sleepwalk to Trident very neatly last July
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article684650.ece
""SELDOM HAVE there been finer examples than this July of the propensity of humans and our institutions to reinforce failure. We carry on marching towards what we suspect is the abyss for little better reason than that it would be embarrassing to break ranks. Betrothed to our own doom, we shrink from breaking off the engagement because the wedding ring has been purchased, the deposit on the marquee is non-returnable and the bride’s mother would be devastated.
Here we go again with a revamping of Britain’s Trident missile system. It will cost about £20 billion — nearly a penny on income tax — and few can see much use for it, but it’s the soft path between two hard alternatives: the development of a new and truly independent nuclear weapons system; or the permanent abandonment of Britain’s nuclear capability. A new nuclear deterrent (perhaps battlefield or tactical) might have some place in 21st-century theatres of war but would cost more than Trident. A non-nuclear future could rechannel huge resources into our cash-strapped and overstretched conventional Armed Forces — but would cause a ghastly political stink at home. So we shall this year decide to take the most pointless course available. Spare us the “debate”, Tony. The outcome is certain.""
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