Debate on Trident – ‘debate me arse’ as Jim Royle might say

The decision by the UK Government to renew Trident yesterday was sadly a forgone conclusion – going through the motions is sadly very different from having a real debate – there was of course no realistic prospect of the British Government not voting to renew Trident. It does show after all that we live in a democracy but 7 hours to debate spending £24bn on a project that might potentially lead to hundreds of thousands of lives being lost led by a ‘strong’ Prime Minister who would launch a missile if necessary? Do me a favour, as Jim Royle might say, ‘debate me arse.’

Now to be honest and I’m the first to confess I really don’t know a lot of the ins and outs of the debate but then again I don’t really have too – it’s simple in my eyes – the UK Government I suspect is only likely to launch a missile (or at least I suspect) in retaliation and that being the case it will form part of a chain reaction where the US and Russia are ‘pulled in’ as all the other powers that have even one missile are likely to be. And even if one missile is launched then in my humble opinion we are all fecked anyway, because if as claimed, one of these missiles is, (is it?) 10, 000 times as powerful as Hiroshima, then guys, we’re all we’re all doomed anyway.

Now that arguably might be a simplistic way of looking at it but I tend to do simplistic about most things. One of the biggest problems we face in the world today (and this applies to most things) is that government, business and economics seemed to have perfected the idea of making everything as complicated as possible and thus this helps the ordinary simplistic people like myself become alienated from any reasonable debate or discussion about anything.

In a time when we need more of KISS (‘Keep it Simple Stupid’) we have an abundance of systems, processes, protocols and jobs merely to complicate things in order to create a need that wasn’t there before so as to allow businesses to respond and sell (or market) things to us we never knew we needed. The modern day helpline is a wonderful example of this – to minimise time and confusion you now spend more time on the phone speaking to no-one! Anyways, I digress, my point here being create confusion and over-complication and the masses switch off and don’t engage never mind participate and you can sell, market and promote anything based on fear. But that’s for another day.

Back to Trident – the basic argument is preventative - just in case we need it. As I mentioned already, when one missile goes off then we’re all going to be right royally fecked in any case. But in an era when the Government is reminding us we’re all in this together and we should live within our means and our combined debt is something like £17bn the obvious idea would be to simply use the costs of trident to wipe out the debt (and fund the NHS to a much better standard) but that is too obvious of course. I tend to look at it another way - £24bn for a project that we will probably never use – that is hardly the Value for Money that Government demands from all government departments not to mention the voluntary and community sector which I have frequented over the years.

If you want to look at Value for Money then consider this - as I understand it (unless someone can correct me), in the 60+ years we’ve had nuclear bombs on this planet, only two have ever been used as against the 1000’s that have been stockpiled (in the main the US and Russia) and thus trillions is spent on these items. Yet our history of using said items is, well almost, zero (thank all the gods of course for this). If you apply government thinking around Value for Money, that’s not a great use of tax payers money.

Now Theresa May said there’s always a Trident summarise patrolling under our seas and we’re all safer for that. I’m going to have to take your word for that,but actually how would you know? How would any of us know? You could telling me that Mrs May but you’ve no way of actually knowing – it’s blind faith really. Of course, military generals wouldn’t lie to you, but then again neither would politicians.

So essentially, we’re paying £24bn for a project we’ll never see, will never be used and if used will lead to perhaps millions of lives lost in a chain reaction of missile strikes that would lead us then to try and survive in a world suffering from inevitable radiation that would make our existence pretty unbearable post-launch. Even the post-apocalyptic society we’d live in would be enough argument for not using nuclear missiles.

Yes, I know there are a few bad eggs out there who if given the chance would want to rattle off a few missiles in the direction of the UK and of course the potential for that exists, but let’s face it, there are so many security checks and systems and pass words and protections in place that the likelihood of that is pretty remote unless of course it’s in a country that houses missiles (how many of those are there again?) and that that ‘mad man’ and his team of nuclear scientists and rogue generals manage to gain access to those places deep underground or under the sea, whichever it tends to be. And that said, as the US is our great partner surely they would dump some of their stockpile on the location of that bad egg. And what bad egg wants to rule a world that isn’t fit to live in after he has launched the first missile?

So, yes, perhaps I take a very simplistic view of this whole trident debate but let’s face, we’re renewing a project that is unlikely ever to be used. And wasn’t there something or other about it being a little unsafe or a waste of money – nothing short of exaggeration by a bunch of scientists I suspect – those experts, eh? We’ve had enough of them!

I’m no expert but in a world that preaches being safe then this isn’t; in a world that preaches value for money, this isn’t and in a world that talks about democracy and debate, seven hours debate on a £24bn project that we’ll never use, debate it most certainly isn’t. Debate Me Fecking Arse!