One of the big bones of contention I have with others on the left and the Greens especially is their long opposition to nuclear power.
I think we need a review. I read an article many years ago that suggested that if we deployed our nuclear arsenal on the over side of the world the nuclear winter it would create would be so extreme it would wend life as we know it this side of the world. If true I’m not sure why we need so many nuclear warheads, especially when you consider that if we fire ours our allies are probably also firing theirs and our enemies are also firing theirs.
If we can reduce our arsenal the money saved could be spent in other areas of military capability. For instance we might be able to have enough type 45 frigates so there’s always at least one combat ready to leave port at a moments notice to protect British interests, unlike what we’ve witnessed this week. It’s a national embarrassment that the navy has been cut so much over the last decade or so we have to say give us a weeks notice when something kicks off. We’re an island nation, a lot of our overseas territories are island nations, we sing a song about how we ruled the waves.
Events this week should be an eye opener. Especially where the navy is concerned. It’s lost 25%?of its personnel since 2000 and the fleet shrank 50% since 2010. Yes we’re rebuilding and modernising our fleet with some incredible equipment but ships aren’t built overnight.
The estimated cost of maintaining our nuclear arsenal is something like £6.5 billion a year, that’s about 10% of our defence budget. Maybe a portion of that money could be better spent elsewhere. For instance the budget for improving equipment in the navy over the next decade is £40 billion. We could increase that substantially if we were spending less on maintaining a nuclear arsenal we never intend to use and is clearly to big.