“The combined cost of replacing the Trident nuclear missile system and building, equipping and running two large aircraft carriers will be as much as £130bn, far more than the government has admitted, an in­-depth study of the huge defence projects reveals today.” – UK Press report Sept 2009.

£130bn, if the report was anywhere near correct, could be used to build more than two hundred (200) fully­-equipped, new hospitals nationwide to a similar specification of the planned new Royal Liverpool Hospital ­ in a move that could revolutionise the NHS in Britain.

Unfortunately, the Cameron government would prefer to spend that money on nuclear weapons that would be completely useless against existing nuclear states such as Israel that already has a fleet of second­-strike, nuclear armed submarines secretly patrolling the Mediterranean, the Gulf and possibly also the North Sea.

The so­-called Trident ‘nuclear deterrent’ may possibly deter a non­-nuclear state from attacking Britain but would not deter an existing nuclear power such as Israel, Russia, China or Pakistan if, in future, one of them should decide to flex its nuclear muscle for political or regional advantage.

Such a scenario is by no means implausible should there be a structural change in the existing relationship between any of the above nuclear powers and the United States.

Already, last week, the US has accused the Israeli state of corruption of congress and espionage in relation to the American­-led, international trade agreement with Iran and there will doubtless be further such allegations.

Britain would do far better by renouncing its policy of nuclear WMD and using the billions saved to increase the standard of national health in Britain to a level at least as good as in Germany and the EU where there is vastly superior cancer and cardiac care. That is the way to protect the lives of Britain’s citizens, not by throwing away billions on nuclear WMD that could lead to our self­-destruction.

Of course, we would probably lose our seat on the UN Security Council to the Federal Republic of India with its population already nearly nineteen (19) times the size of ours; a GDP Growth Rate of 6.9% and with oil and gas reserves many times that of the United Kingdom.

But isn’t that called ‘democracy’ and ‘common sense’ and shouldn’t Mr Cameron appreciate that colonial imperialism died in the last century? It is now January 2016.