Fit? No Trident Debate?

[phoenix]

Trident is, by wide agreement across the political spectrum, of no military value whatsoever. The former Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded in his autobiography that its practical utility was “non-existent” and that keeping it was purely a matter of status, while the former Conservative defence secretary Michael Portillo called it a “tremendous waste of money” that was “completely past its sell-by date”.

 

For an old Tory , Portillo's alright and he has a Scottish grunny.    I also like his railway programmes.

 

Anyway , let's get shot of the Trident aBOMBination.

 

http://wingsoverscotland.com/

 

[manc_don]

His railway programmes, particularly around Europe were brilliant!

 

Anyway, I think it's been quite obvious for a long time that it's a status thing.  Britain does not want to be seen as it actually is, a marginal world wide force.  the jobs thing and providing a reason to go to that area of the country is a concern (yes I get the tourism thing but that's not going to happen over night).  A lot of jobs will be lost and the local economy will suffer.

 

Will it be worth it? Yes, most definitely.  It's a massive drain on our resource and for what gain?  I'm not seeing it.

 

Nice article about Hans Blix by Jon Snow:

 

http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/hans-blix-advises-britain-abandon-trident/20426

[donsdaft]

Get rid of it.

As for his railway programs, I think he was almost outside my house last year.

Shame I didn't know or I would have been outside shouting " you Tory poof" at him.

 

 

[Tyrant]

Get rid. Money that could be far better spent elsewhere.

[Jute]

The obvious and sensible option is for the system to be scraped but as its a status thing and it keeps the UK's seat on the UN security council no Westminster government will ever get rid.

 

As no UK government will ever get rid I would like to see the SNP push for the Trident boats to be relocated to somewhere in the home counties and replaced by the fleet subs or the surface fleet moved to the Faslane and Rosyth to counter any job losses.

 

 

[phoenix]

I do occasionally worry about the religious nutters with a death wish...these individuals would take us all with them if they had the power but this is no argument for replenishing our stockpile.

[capitalred]

I do occasionally worry about the religious nutters with a death wish...these individuals would take us all with them if they had the power but this is no argument for replenishing our stockpile.

 

They religious nutters (we'll call them the selic and sevco group for ease of understanding),  wont be deterred by anyone having the ability to nuke back, nae doot they would welcome such a retaliation.  But we aren't even allowed to use ours unless its been authorised and ordered by thon yank fuckers, for all intents and purposes they have sub  let the missiles to our platforms to meet their needs but with us paying for the status, win win for the wanks.

 

I went aboard one of the subs in Gairloch about 10 years back, intresting, but flook that for a game of soldiers/sailors, chugging about the bottom banging into creels and stuff for months on end, also managed to go into a yank missile bunker in germany about 1988, that was pretty surreal.

 

It wont matter if we fire them or not, we'll still be fucked, so get rid of the things, a drain on the economy and pointless

[phoenix]

Update:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/putin-nuclear-trident-russia-britain-deterrent?CMP=share_btn_fb

[Stupie82]

I just don't see the need to spend £100bn on something we will never use. Its not even a deterrent, it is just purely there for status purposes. Why cant we lead the way in disarming the weapons altogether and why is the SNP's question on nuclear weapons not getting answered. £100bn is a shed load of money and it amazes me the amount of people who still think it 'creates jobs' so its okay. No it isn't, they are evil, they cause destruction beyond any human recognition and they have no place in todays world.

[Garlogie_Granite]

it amazes me the amount of people who still think it 'creates jobs' so its okay

There are two regular attacks on the SNP over this that just have banging my head agaisnt the wal.

 

The first is the above. So how many jobs would £100bn create exactly? Jesus christ. I'd love to see amount spent versus job created, figure would be astronomical.

 

Second is the armed forces one - the SNP dont want to support the armed forces. From what I've seen, they do, but more importantly we've gone through years of our armed forces being cut by both shades of Tory, again, how many soldiers could we put back in the forces if we spent hat £100bn there instead of on one submarine.

 

[manc_don]

I guess the argument for creating jobs is something I mentioned earlier. There is very little other industry out there currently. That's not to say that there wouldn't be with the right investment, tourism especially. Even if a small portion of that was spent on tourism, you could still have a small scale naval base there without the need for pointless submarines. That way the "naval economy" is still kept in tact. Either way, the product doesn't justify the spending in my eyes. English folk down here keep harping about an increased threat from Russia. Well, I'm quite certain if Russia did want to attack, we'd be fucked anyway. A few nukes arent going to stop them.