Trident, should we, or shouldn't we?

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lammo Jul 2016 9:31am, 17 Jul 2016 6,633 posts	0 lammo Having read the below, I was surprised there were so many Scottish protesting against it, must be worth thousands of jobs in Scotland. bbc.co.uk What do we think about renewing the fleet?
AndyJ82 Jul 2016 10:25am, 17 Jul 2016 91 posts	0 AndyJ82 My tuppence, better to have and never need than to not have it and need it.
LazyDaisy Jul 2016 2:35pm, 17 Jul 2016 14,980 posts	0 LazyDaisy I think I agree, Andy. It's not an easy decision by any means.
Angus Clydesdale Jul 2016 2:43pm, 17 Jul 2016 11,148 posts	0 Angus Clydesdale I heard that if we got rid of Trident we could have £350 million pounds a week for the NHS........ Oh, hang on, that was a different lie
fraggle Jul 2016 3:07pm, 17 Jul 2016 816 posts	0 fraggle In an ideal world no-one would have nuclear weaponry, but it sint an ideal world so I would say Yes we should re-new it
Angus Clydesdale Jul 2016 7:06pm, 17 Jul 2016 11,149 posts	0 Angus Clydesdale Some sources state that it will cost £205bn: theguardian.com By my reckoning that would be the equivalent to putting £350 million per week into the NHS for nearly 11 years. But hey, mutually assured destruction is a far better prospect, isn't it?
Jambomo Jul 2016 7:45pm, 17 Jul 2016 5,810 posts	0 Jambomo We should get rid of it. I don't believe that anyone genuinely believes we'd actually use it anyway so I don't think it's the deterrent that we believe it is. It's also largely meant to be US technology running on US satellites so we don't even have the ability to deploy it when we wish as we'd need them to agree. Plenty of other decent sized countries don't see the need for them and have not yet been annihilated by the Russians. I think we'd be better off with a bigger and better equipped armed forces that we can actually use and putting the money into the country.
JulesR Jul 2016 8:22pm, 17 Jul 2016 10,642 posts	0 JulesR Trident jobs in Scotland are only 520 as MoD official figures, plus the vast majority of workers at Faslane where it's base only stay there Mon-Fri on base, so don't help the local economy - the nearest town Helensburgh is in a really run down state. Local politicians, especially the Lab MSP talk of 'tens of thousands of jobs' & the boost the benefits to the local economy but it's 520 jobs. I'm not convinced about the argument that we should keep these nuclear mass-destruction weapons to protect a few jobs. Happy to post a link to the 520 jobs MoD figure if anyone wants to see it
Jambomo Jul 2016 2:38pm, 19 Jul 2016 5,816 posts	0 Jambomo I guess that question has been put to bed, though I'm not sure the government have really answered the question of Should we? by deciding so quickly (and without much apparent thought) that We Will, is the answer.
lammo Jul 2016 2:41pm, 19 Jul 2016 6,658 posts	0 lammo Indeed, unless they really do view at as a no brainer. Perhaps it does give us some qudos / clout with some people at various times, but is it really worth it, im still not sure.