The Sunday Times
carried a large article (protected by their paywall) on the Lib Dems’ proposal
for a cheaper replacement for Trident, under the dismissive headline “tuppenny
Trident”. Contrary to the impression
which a number of Lib Dem politicians have tried to give over a lengthy period,
which is that the party is opposed to nuclear weapons, it seems that they are
only really opposed to expensive ones. As
long as they can get cheap ones, then they’re quite happy to support the
development and deployment of a new generation of nuclear weapons.
To say that their
alternative proposal would only cost tuppence is an exaggeration to say the
least; their proposals would still mean spending billions of pounds on weapons
of mass destruction rather than using the money for peaceful economic
development; it’s just a smaller number of billions.
For that, they’d
get slower, shorter range missiles. To
the extent that such weapons actually deter anyone at all – and I certainly don’t
believe that they do – it seems that the Lib Dems are setting their sights
somewhat lower in terms of who they want to deter.
There is also the
little matter of the illegality under international treaties of developing and
deploying a new nuclear weapons system, but it seems that the Lib Dems, just
like the Labour and Conservative parties, believe that international treaties
are things which only apply to other people.
And all three parties appear to be convinced that possessing bigger
sticks that the other kids is the way to ensure ‘influence’ in the world.
It’s an outdated
view of the world, but one which is hard to shift. And in the meantime, our taxes will continue
to be spent on unnecessary and useless weaponry in pursuit of that outmoded
view, whichever of the three parties exercises power in London.
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2 comments:
If you have library card, and you register with http://librarywales.org/ (current and valid library card will be needed) you can view text based articles of most newspapers, including Sunday Times for free. Another great reason why we should use the local library.
While WMD are literally useless, (we can't use them without being wiped out ourselves), the huge and increasing amounts of money that are being spent on real and present threats from terrorists come out of a different budget, and so are not weighed against WMD when prioritising spending. They should all come under the MoD.
BTW, I love the new Devo+ movement in Scotland, because before they know it, they will be reduced to just defending the retention of WMDs very close to the largest concentration of population in Scotland. Good luck with that!
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