Global Rundown

There is a lot to get through as 1. I haven’t written in so long and 2. There’s been so much going on. Let’s start with the news of peace on the Korean peninsula. Believe what you want but anyone thinking this has nothing to do with Trump is out of their mind. If you study politics closely (like me) then you will understand what all of the political posturing is about. It’s all mind games and statesmanship. Showing an iron resolve when most of the world’s media were going mad thinking the US and North Korea, were on the brink of nuclear war. Some think of it as bullying tactics but North Korea did threaten to nuke Guam, so the President returned in kind by offering swift action in retaliation. Things of this magnitude aren’t taken lightly on the world stage. Neither looking to climb down from their position, but if you put it into context it’s what Trump has been doing his whole life in business. It’s dick measuring on the biggest scale. Who will blink first? Playing hardball. Rightly or wrongly, Trump is treating the entire USA as a business, as it’s all he knows.

As far as I can see, the key decisions, he’s done alright. I cut through all the bullshit and the edgy comments because he’s an egomaniac and they feel they have to be heard, so will quite literally say anything. It’s all a front. Behind closed doors, I reckon the Donald is cold and calculated and probably a whole lot more intelligent than most think. It’s why he fits in so well in politics, there’s so many levels. In politics and business, you need to be savvy to a degree in people manipulation, to get people to do what you want. To curry favour. You’ve got to be ruthless, which he’s shown in countless dismissals of staff. It all adds to this overall grandiose character. Trump has called for nuclear de-escalation from North Korea since he got into power. Because of the mounted tensions between the US and North Korea, he got into a position where he could call them to the negotiating table almost as a last resort but I think it was his plan all along. All of the ‘i’ll destroy the little rocket man with my powerful nuclear button’ was more posturing. Putting Kim in his place, so that when it came round to it, Trump said we’ll keep all of the sanctions going because we can, unless you can offer something. They hadn’t tested weapons for months and promised to continue throughout the entirety of the talks. They made massive steps with the South and agreed that nuclear disarmament was the way forward. Now, tell me that would have happened without the situation between Donald and Kim. Even the left’s lord and saviour, Obama couldn’t get them to the table and there was me thinking you all thought he was the best President of all time!

Quick history lesson, the Koreans have been split along the 38 degree parallel since 1953. No one has even come close to help re-conciliate their differences in that entire time. I’ll concede that one of the stumbling blocks were the former leaders Kim Il-Sung (senior and junior) who held an iron grip on the country from 1948 through until 2011. Yet it still took 7 years to get this guy to the table. I also agree that giving Trump a Nobel peace prize might be going a little bit far, although it gives context to the sheer scale of this event in the chronology of history. This is their Berlin Wall moment, should it all work out. We just can’t see it yet, as we don’t have the ability to look back on this momentous occasion. He should at least be given credit for his use of soft and hard power on the international stage, the fact that people aren’t giving him any credit is outrageous. They’re so blinded by this hate of his personality, that they can’t accept he’s helped towards something good and actually doing his job that he was elected to do. Give it a break for one day and give the Donald a pat on the back. Before he comes out and says something crazy tomorrow!

Still related but moving on. There is a supposed protest to Trump’s visit to the UK. Yet again, utterly abhorrent behaviour from all involved. Need I remind you all that just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean you have to protest. He’s a democratically elected head of state for our closest ally. He deserves respect. You may disagree with most, if not all of his policies but the American people chose him to represent them and their views on the world stage. Stop being so pig headed and accept his position. Imagine if Theresa May got booed and there was a protest if she visited the US. There’d be absolute uproar, and half of the people involved in this protest don’t even like her either! You can’t claim to champion living in a democracy if you can’t accept the outcome of our political system. Maybe you should go and talk to some people that have lived under a dictator with no choice when it came to elections. It really is first world problems. Let’s be honest, Trump was the best of a bad bunch. Hillary is a cluster fuck of a human being and would have been awful for the American people. Yet if she would have won, I would have accepted it and wouldn’t protest her visit to this country. We have got to the point where we don’t have anything left to fight, so the left is fighting it’s own people.

This brings me onto freedom of speech. Count Dakula to be precise. When I first read about this case I literally couldn’t believe what I was reading. A guy jokingly taught his pug to Nazi salute and posted it onto Youtube. Why have we suddenly had a sense of humour failure in this country? We have had some of the greatest comics in this country and they have always been funny by pushing the boundaries of what is funny and acceptable. My favourites are a lot of the jokes that end in ‘too soon?’. I’ll tell you where we have gone wrong and I shall use Have I Got News For You as an example. Now, I have watched and loved this programme since I was an early teen, so about 15 years ago. I’ll set the scene, leftie luvvie Tony Blair was in power, he couldn’t do any wrong, then he goes to war in Iraq. They absolutely ripped him and even though they weren’t in power, they ripped the Tories too for good measure. Fast forward to now. Theresa May is in power and everything is Brexit this and Brexit that. Being the BBC obviously there is a massive bias and a lot of the jokes have Brexit at the butt of them. I get it, I know it gets tiresome but you know what you get if you watch something on BBC 1. However, the thing I have noticed is that any joke about Corbyn or Labour, if made at all goes down like a lead balloon. I’m wetting myself at home on the sofa but the audience has a few titters but it’s like someone has died. The double standards are ridiculous, in my eyes everyone is fair game. If you’re in public service or in the public eye than you run the risk of being satirised, that is how it has always worked. But it’s become almost like the BBC is protecting the Labour party from scrutiny and won’t have a bad word said about them. It’s a sad day in the history of TV, in a supposed free country where censorship is creeping in the back door. It sets a dangerous precedent, creating a pedastool where certain people are beyond criticism or ridicule because of their political leanings. Now I can accept i’m probably to the right of centre, not far right but what is now days probably classed as ‘alt-right’ not that iam, that’s just the newest label that anyone not on the left is given, along with racist, fascist, white supremacist, personally I can’t keep up as it changes weekly or as often as they choose to change their gender, ooh right in the bollocks, if they have them left that is!

But for someone like me that enjoys satire but isn’t on that side of the political spectrum can see there aren’t many ‘right wing’ comics left. Almost like they’ve been weeded out by the humour police. There’s a massive gap in the market but no platform to do so, channel 4 won’t allow it because they’re fucking bedwetters and too busy pushing through gay agendas and focusing on minorites. It only leaves ITV (terrestrial) who couldn’t risk losing viewers, the whole system seems pretty wrapped up. It was refreshing that Roseanne has been brought back in America and I think something similar over here would be a huge hit. Could you imagine, a conservative minded white male as a lead character?! Can’t allow that now though can we? It might upset and offend ethnic minorites because there’s no diversity, liberals because they can’t accept facts or anything apart from their own opinion, gays because there’s no gay character involved as there always has to be in everything single programme even though they account for less than 5% of the population, yeah that’s realistic. It’s just constant and ongoing, i’d like to see a programme like this just to spite these offended cunts. Offence is good, it creates differing view points, debate, dialogue (although the left don’t seem capable as they can’t be constructive and look at both sides of an argument and resort to shouting racist as soon as they’re presented with facts but hey ho).

 

The whole idea of free speech is to say anything freely no matter how wrong or different as long as you don’t incite hatred, right? Using harsh language doesn’t constitute hatred. Maybe people are confusing offence with hatred? If enough people are offended does that deem someone to be hateful? No is the answer. Maybe we should concentrate on teaching the English language to our children so that they can differentiate between the meaning of offence and hatred, because quite clearly the lines are being blurred in the current climate. Whilst we’re at it, teach them how to debate and the powers of dialogue. I don’t think we’ve been further apart in my lifetime, the left and the right. We have no common interest or shared mutual goals. No one left to defeat. All of the parties are the same now and have been for years. I’d like to see them all wiped out, Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems. We need something new. Maybe we will see it post-brexit? Who knows? One thing is for sure, sensitivity needs to be stripped back. We used to be made of stiffer stuff. You might be offended but it doesn’t mean you need to cry about it, make a joke back. Dialogue is the key. Offence is so one sided and i’m sick of it. Also here’s a link to an old post about the real definitions of racist and fascist explained, as I have seen no improvement on these words so easily thrown about, lessening their meaning and skewing the perception of what a real racist or fascist is.

https://wordpress.com/post/gunnerlukey.wordpress.com/664

To end, i’d like to remind all of you cheerleaders for Labour and the socialist movement, that Nazi actually stands for National SOCIALIST German Workers’ Party. How’s that for changing the perception and definition of a word. Good day to you.

Labour Manifesto Run Through

By now I’m guessing you’ve read the Tory version of this, so you know what to expect, if you haven’t and are just reading this because it’s got the word Labour in it, then this is already lost on you. I’m not here to change minds, just give a clear view of what is on offer. Let’s begin.

I glossed over Corbyn’s foreword as I’m sure much like the Tories, it will be repeated later on. They start by making a pledge of not raising Income Tax for earners below £80,000, not raising National Insurance Contributions or VAT (Pro – a good strong start, Con – I feel as this is ‘fully costed’ they could have left themselves an option for raising capital by maybe omitting National Insurance contributions, so they could change it at a later stage to generate funds for the economy).

They say that Corporation Tax is the lowest in the developed world and that they will ask them to pay a bit more, whilst maintaining we will still be one of the lowest (Pro – generate a fair amount of income for HMRC, Con – if this is true then expect a hike of corporations tax by up to 6%, the average is about 25% with the exceptions of Denmark, Finland and Ireland, what’s to stop these corporations from leaving the financial centre in London? We have already seen it with Google in Ireland whose Corporation tax rate is only 12.5%).

They pledge to eliminate the deficit within 5 years (Con – highly unrealistic and they will be savaged by it in years to come if they get elected, very risky pledge to make).

Creation of the National Transformation Fund, investing £250bn over 10 years to enhance our economy (Con – considering they said this was fully costed the only explanation they give for where this money is coming from is ‘record low interest rates’, doesn’t seem plausible but we’ll carry on and see).

Completion of HS2 (Pro/Con – much like the Tories it’s not costed because the price keeps rising, it will benefit the country to complete this project though and any incumbent government will complete it anyway).

Build a new Brighton main line for the South East (Pro/Con – it’s good to see distribution of wealth in small regions like this, yet I can’t think of what the strategic importance of Brighton is? Surely the money is better spent connecting bigger cities with more to offer?).

They make the same promise as the Tories to roll out super fast broadband and increase 4G coverage across the land (Pro).

Setting out to make 60% of the UK’s energy come from zero carbon or renewable energy sources by 2030 (Pro – this will keep environmentalists on side and is a step towards a cleaner country, Con – yet again probably paid for by more green taxes or levies).

Committing to spending 3% of GDP on Industrial research and development in regards to manufacturing (Pro).

Moving towards a 20:1 gap between highest and lowest paid at boardroom level (Pro).

Creation of a Digital Ambassador to liase and encourage investment and to accommodate easy start ups, to put Britain on the front foot for the future (Pro).

Creation of the National Investment Bank with the lending power of £250bn, bridging the gap where small businesses and projects wouldn’t usually get investment from other banks (Pro – great for the little guy, Con – there’s usually a reason behind people not getting accepted, as the loan is considered too much of a risk and if too many default on their payments then the government will spend even more in trying to recoup the costs).

Re-nationalisation of Royal Mail, Water Companies, Railways and Energy firms (Pro – it would decrease overall spending of the consumer by a large margin, Con – the initial outlay will be immense and a couple of these Royal Mail and Railways won’t be up for sale for a long time).

Energy wise, Homeowners will be given interest free loans to improve their property E.g installing solar panels, double glazing, etc…(Pro).

Ban Fracking (Con – until research is thoroughly conducted as to whether it damages the environment, you shouldn’t rule out a massive untapped market, bad move economically).

Negotiating Brexit – Scrap Conservative White paper and establish new bill that sets out guarantees to workers rights, staying in customs union and Single Market (Big Con – now this is me being unbiased, they quite clearly stated that they respect the decision of the referendum but in the very next sentence set out an aim of basically staying inside the EU? Also a poor negotiating stance, letting the opposition know what you’re going to be negotiating towards, as they won’t let you have it).

Rules out a ‘no deal’ (Big Con – if you can’t get a good deal out of the EU then you have done badly but haven’t failed, a no deal is the last stab in the heart for the EU, as it is more advantageous for us as they buy more from us then we buy from them, levying a 10% tariff on goods through WTO rules is the last thing on the EU’s mind, rest assured they will cave or face the consequences).

They make the same pledges to making sure regions don’t lose our on ‘EU money’ (which was ours anyway) and want to broker peace in Northern Ireland ASAP (Pro).

No ‘hard border’ between Northern and Republic of Ireland post Brexit (Pro – worth mentioning that even though it’s not mentioned in Tory Manifesto this is the broad view of all political parties as it would destabilise the region and create tension unnecessarily).

Giving Parliament the final say on Brexit deal (Con – they can’t be trusted not to derail the process).

Stating Freedom of Movement will end with Brexit (Big Pro).

Put a stop to Overseas only recruitment (Pro).

Committing to taking our fair share of refugees (Big Con – it’s just another way around immigration numbers, also not stating a clear amount).

Commits to rejoining World Trade Organisation rules post Brexit (Pro).

Creation of the National Education Service, free at the point of use ‘from cradle to grave’ (Pro – it’s nice they want to recreate what Clement Attlee did with the health service and do the same with education, Con – however purely because of what Attlee did this isn’t productive or sustainable money wise, look at the NHS budget over the years, there isn’t enough money for it meaning there isn’t enough money for this before it has even started, a great notion and attempt at a long lasting legacy, yet not to be).

Restructuring the support for early years childcare, extend what the Tories offer to 3 and 4 year olds down to 2 year olds as well, making sure affordable childcare is available to everyone, also making some childcare available for 1 year olds and increasing maternity pay to cover 12 months (Biggest Pro on here! Its a big left hook to the Tories chin as I mentioned in the previous Tory Run Through, our childcare system lags far behind others and this is a massive positive step in the right direction, Con – only a slight Con – my optimism is met by my niggling pessimism yet again asking how will you ever pay for it but I’ll let Labour have this one as it’s their best policy I can get behind!).

Reversing cuts in funding to schools and balancing out of redistribution of funds to historically worse off schools (Pro – schools are massively underfunded which has a profound effect on how much they can pay teachers which is why we have a shortage, Con – I’m hoping this fully costed Manifesto has a breakdown of the numbers somewhere near the end, as this is one of many points that I’m yet to see a figure on!).

Reduction in class sizes to less than 30 for five, six and seven year olds (Pro).

Free school meals for all primary school children paid for by removing VAT exemption on private school fees (Pro – finally something costed! It’s a good idea yet, Con – charging some kids for the sake of others doesn’t bode well for someone who claims to be all for equality,  the famous saying ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’, this could create a rift in the class system as private school kids look down on others as they’re paying for them, which gives them an air of superiority in some regards, messy business but I agree with it).

Improving children’s mental health by extending school based counselling at a cost of £90m a year (Pro – mental health issues don’t form overnight when you hit your teens, this could have a profound effect on combating mental health issues later in life).

Restoring EMA to lower and medium income teens (Pro).

Abolishing tuition fees for university (Pro – fully support this as no student should be buried in debt upon leaving uni, Con – not costed, sorry I know I’m trying to be unbiased but they shouldn’t have made such a stupid promise of being fully costed, plus if it’s funded by the taxpayer then students will take a lot of heat for basically having uni paid for, so they can go out and get pissed it’s what it used to be like even when it was at £3k!).

Ban zero hours contracts (Con – they work for the people that want them on a flexible basis E.g mums and students, Pro – they’re poor if this the only kind of work you can get).

Ban companies from undercutting British workers by getting foreign workers (Pro – finally a mainstream party eluding to wage compression due to foreign workers/ immigrants!).

Raise minimum wage to £10 ph by 2020 (Pro/Con – made the same point about the Tories and how it creates redundancies).

Banning unpaid internships (Pro – wholly unfair to the intern, Con – position may be outsourced and offered to foreign workers instead).

Double paid paternity leave for new fathers to four weeks (Big Pro).

Scrap the Bedroom Tax (Pro and Con).

Reinstating housing benefit to under 21s (Pro).

Creation of Ministry for Housing which is aimed at dealing with the housing crisis (Con – another waste of resources and another meaningless ministry).

Aim to build 100,000 council and housing association homes in the next parliament (Pro – heed caution every government fails to meet targets of house building, Tories included).

Inflation cap on private renting (Pro).

Free parking in hospitals paid for by increasing the tax of private medical insurance premiums (Pro).

Scrap NHS pay cap and have it run by an independent pay review body (Pro – healthcare professionals need a well earned pay rise for such a demanding job, Con – more needs to be done to cut out bureaucracy and middle managers as they will be the ones to profit from pay increases, which isn’t fair on nurses who deserve it more).

Reintroduction of bursaries for nursing degrees (Pro – however not costed).

An extra £30bn in funding for NHS paid for by taxing the top 5% of earners, increasing tax on private insurance and halving the fees to management consultants (Pro – may not be as clear cut as that, top 5 % of earners may bugger off to Switzerland and take their money with them, then you’d have a massive black hole in your NHS budget, be careful using the NHS as a political football!).

Introduction of a National Care Service with an increase to social care spending to the tune of £8bn over the next parliament (Con – it’s a nice idea, but realistically they say it’s budget will be pooled within the overall NHS budget which is unpredictable and technically uncosted, hate to say as I’m trying to give Labour a fair review here but they’re letting themselves down).

Labour want to increase police officer numbers by 10,000 (Con – I have to bring up that shameful Diane Abbott interview in which she couldn’t come up with a number of how much it will cost so not likely to happen!).

500 more Border Force operatives (Con – uncosted, this is getting boring now!).

3000 more firefighters (Con – yep you guessed it uncosted, this is hard to stay unbiased as Labour are shooting themselves in the foot, why spout rhetoric of a fully costed Manifesto and then not expect people to read it!).

Wish to retain Human Rights Act (Con – would much prefer to scrap it and introduce a Bill of Rights with the main parts of Human Rights E.g right to a fair trial etc…enshrined into it, but to make it easier to deport criminals to free up our overcrowded and underfunded prison system).

3000 more prison guards (Con – After stating that prisons are overcrowded and staffing levels are too low, they yet again haven’t costed this).

There is a section on transport and Railways but going back to my previous point of them not being able to do anything until they have bought it back, makes it an irrelevant point at the moment and I won’t include it as to stay impartial.

Striving for a transport network with zero deaths and reintroducing Road safety targets (Big Con – setting themselves a completely unrealistic and unachievable target is narrow minded and in doing so bringing back Road safety targets, which promotes use of speed cameras and lowering of speed limits which I definitely can’t back!).

They try and take a dig at the Tories about not having a clue about farming and fishing policy, yet I have quite clearly made the point in my previous run through, unsound, unnecessary and flawed rhetoric. (Con).

They make the same point of creating a Blue Belt but only state around the UK and not inclusive of our Overseas Territories (Pro/Con – pipped to it by the Tories).

Banning pesticides that kill bees as soon as we’re out of EU same as Tories (Pro).

Maintain Ban on foxhunting (Pro/Con).

There is a section about Creativity and the Arts and lots of promises about funds, yet no costs so I’m not going to entertain the idea of sifting through these policies as they have holes in them, so in the interest of being balanced I shall move on.

They come out in support of the BBC which is a big turn off for voters, it’s quite apparent that the TV licence will be cut or scrapped altogether in the not too distant future, which I fully support as the continuing left bias of the BBC is frustrating considering we pay for it. Maybe they should have advertising of only British products to promote our industries? Who knows! Plus they covered up Saville, hey ho moving on.

In the next section they admit a desire for a more federalistic state, which I knew they’d cram in somewhere with Corbyn being a massive Republican (Big Con).

Reduce the number in the House of Lords and make them elected (Pro/Con – too many Lords don’t do their job and turn up just to get paid an allowance which is a total abuse of the system, plus it’s an unrepresentative cross section who get picked. Though constitutional reform on this scale will be met with a backlash, as the actual Lords that have got there for being an expert in their field and have an valuable insight into their field will be lost).

Lower the voting age to 16 (Big Con – politics isn’t even taught in schools at this point and is dangerous to add this demographic to the voting register, regardless of your counter argument it’s irresponsible).

They don’t support a second Scottish referendum (Pro).

However, they go on to say they will increase funds to them which deletes the point of having the Barnet formula and I also agree with the Tories that given the devolved powers over taxation, they’re lagging behind and don’t warrant that much funding. (Con).

There’s a lot of waffle in this Manifesto, more so than the Tories, which I didn’t think was possible yet there’s 128 pages in this compared to the 88 of the Tories, although every 3-4 pages there’s a picture or blank page.

Next they take a stab at the Tories for rolling back gender equality for women, bit of a retarded statement from a party that’s never had a female leader, yet the Tories have had two female Prime Ministers, your point is imvalid and redundant. (Big Con).

They go on a big about LGBT and racism, stating they’re against antisemitism, yet Ken Livingstone has only been suspended for antisemitic remarks not permanently suspended, one rule for you, one rule for others? Contradictory (Con).

In a section named diplomacy they quite clearly state they’re opposed to the current US administration and that the special relationship is only based on shared values, which is unreasonable and unstatesman like. As PM he says he will exhaust all diplomatic services with nations, yet isn’t willing to get along with our closest ally for the good of our countries, even Theresa May got on with him for fuck sake. (Big Con – unnecessary).

They support a two state system in Israel for Palestine which is yet again unrealistic, however we’re uniquely involved as we caused this problem in the first place, however taking into account what happened in WW2 and the persecution of the Jews, they deserve a state of their own so that they don’t have to run or escape persecution ever again. Yet again I will side with our Israeli allies anytime (Con).

They believe that diplomatic dialogue with North Korea is needed to diffuse the situation in the peninsula (Pro/Con – could go either way).

Committed to spending 2% of GDP on defense as part of NATO obligations (Pro).

Now Corbyn’s biggest weak point, even though in the Manifesto it states they commit to renewing Trident after his calamitous answers to the audience in the leaders debate, no one can actually believe anything he says about Trident as he wouldn’t actually ever use it (Biggest Con – like I said weakest point, you couldn’t feel safe under Corbyn).

A good point on defense, he’d commit to procuring British Steel and using it in the manufacturing of defense equipment (Pro).

Finally they commit 0.7% of GDP to ‘international development’ which is a fancy way of saying foreign aid (Con – money better used elsewhere like on all of the uncosted pledges that I have picked out!).

I will give this Manifesto a 6.5 out of 10, you might be puzzled by this as I found so much wrong with it, yet on balance they had some strong ideas that I agree with, there are only three major sticking points for me. Obviously the notion that this was fully costed, if they didn’t shout about it so much this would have been on par with or just behind the Tories. Secondly, the unnecessary swipe at Trump which had nothing to with the election in general dented his credentials as a world leader. Finally, it has to be the weak stance on Trident, it really was the nail in the coffin for Labour, especially after the Diane Abbott debacles!

All I have to say is that I wrote these as a helpful guide for people, if you disagree with my unbiased view then the actual Manifesto is readily available and you can see it for yourself. I have nothing to gain by not stating facts, bear in mind I support neither of these parties! I hope this was…educational. As ever, thank you for reading!

 

 

Britain’s Nuclear Deterrent : Should it stay or should it go?

I’m going to start very early on here and disclose to the reader that i’m in favour of Britain’s nuclear deterrent and it has been brought to my attention that like I have stated in one of my earlier posts, should Scotland gain independence from the UK what effects it could have on England? One thing that would go would be the nuclear deterrent as in the form of the Trident missiles on board the Vanguard submarines, why I might hear you ask? Mainly because the four Vanguards the Royal Navy possess are based in Clyde on the West coast of Scotland, and since the Scottish have no wish to have a nuclear deterrent, one can only guess they would be dismantled or even sold off back to America. Purely on the basis that it would cost far too much to relocate/ build a capable station to encompass these four submarines, it just wouldn’t happen in our current fiscal climate. Although we don’t have to worry about Scottish Independence until 2014 it’s coming around a lot faster than you think.

Trident II D-5

We must ensure that we keep Trident for the simple factor that we need the assurance that no foreign aggressors can create a crisis the UK can’t handle. It’s also good for the peace we can administer in the international community, having that kind of deterrent is useful in critical situations where we could potentially be bullied if we didn’t have it. One thing I quickly want to add, we haven’t heard much from the Iranian’s of late other than the supply of chemical weapons to Syria of course, makes you wonder what is going on behind the scenes? I always think it’s the one region to watch out for considering only a few years ago Ahmadinejad declared that ‘Israel needs to wiped from the face of the earth’. Poor old Israel, the Jews never seem to catch a break! Hated on all sides, Hezbollah in the north and Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza. Not that I defend Israel as they did displace the Palestinians in the first place.

This is what he thinks of Israel.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I want to outline that just because the reason we got the deterrent in the first place has gone, the reason for keeping it is that it’s even more dangerous than it was before. At least in the cold war we knew who the enemy was and who to keep the missiles targeted at and where to have the pointed. Back in 1994 all missiles were de-targetted from Russia, due to the Soviet Union disbanding a few years earlier. Now the system is set so that the Trident missiles can be set and target a potential threat within 15 minutes, not having a specific location to target like back in the cold war.

The political climate is perceived as a lot less hostile in the current day then it once was, I personally think that’s a load of bollocks! Any number of countries still have an underlying threat and could switch at any given time. Even in some of the so called ‘safe’  countries, even UN Security Council members Russia are at risk. It wasn’t even that long ago that Chechen rebels flared up, not on the scale that you once heard about back in the 90’s but the threat is still there. Imagine if Chechen extremists  got their hands on some sort of nuclear material/ weapons? I don’t think for a second that the Russian’s wouldn’t handle it but all it takes is for one missile to be launched or a bomb to be detonated and you have an ever-lasting effect on the world, you only have to look at Yokohama and Nagasaki and imagine it in the ‘modern’ world. I don’t even need to mention the fact that the two Boston bombers are believed to have strong links to Chechnya, that is all you need to know.

Another thing to take into account is the Chinese. They have a foothold in Asia now as they are the biggest economy and driving force in the region. I understand that they are supporters of North Korea and would make it difficult to intervene should the situation escalate from the stage it’s at now. It’s weird how these massive nations continue to prop up these regimes who are clearly trying to instigate problems in the world, you could almost compare it to a child crying for attention, it’s quite pathetic if you think about it!!

India and Pakistan don’t escape this as well as yet again not long ago they were fighting over Kashmir as both lay claim to it and it only takes something major to kick off before they nuke each other and cause irreversible damage and ruin things in the region for years to come. This brings me back to the point of our importance in the EU, as we are the only NPT member other than France in the EU which is why we have the influence we do, and why we are a leading member in NATO as well. Not that we would shy away from our responsibilities within NATO or protecting nations from threat, but we will no longer be the nation they all look to. It’s also a good point to tie in with one of my previous posts of our importance to the US and our hold over Europe, if we were to lose our nuclear programme, it’s debatable the US would see much else we can offer them and would more than likely turn to France for some sort of partnership as they would become the major players in the EU and would have the influence.

Either way, even if we do manage to keep the Trident missiles they will have to be replaced in 2017 as they only have a life of 25-28 years and were made in ’92. So will be looking at a complete overhaul or whether they will even renew it, as we don’t know which government will be in power at the time!!

Where do we go from here?

I shall continue my Trident blog soon!