It is bizarre to me that in a day and age where we are told that supranational terrorist networks are the gravest threat that we face as a society today, that the UK government is prepared to splash out some £75billion-£100billion on a new generation of nukes, which could of course never be deployed against a terrorist.
Wouldn't it make more sense spending this money on the great battles we face in the world today? First up, there is the terrorist threat, which I accept is all too sadly a very real danger. But there is more. We have to try and turn round the damage that human activity has made to our planet's environment, just as we have to try and tackle the problem of poverty, with too many human beings living on less than a dollar a day and struggling to feed themselves and their children.
We have so many problems facing us at home and abroad that it is obscene that the UK government is even considering for an instant that such largesse can be wasted on futile nuclear weapons.
An American President was heard to remark in his inaugural address some 47 years ago that "man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life". These words are as true today as they were when JFK spoke them on 20th January 1961, yet we are still waiting for our leaders to realise that they would be better off investing resources to abolishing all forms of human poverty rather than in technology which may abolish all forms of human life.
That is why I am so proud that the SNP government has stood up against the notion that nuclear weapons are necessary to be harboured in Scotland's waters and are actively campaigning against them. It is also why I am glad that we have organisations such as CND and other anti-nuclear groupings working to the same end.
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