The NHS is currently under attack from cyber-criminals - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/39901370

Security analysts have been saying for years that the top-tier threats to UK security are 1. international terrorism, 2. cyber-criminality, and 3. pandemic, and the UK is painfully exposed to these real credible threats because all the serious money is being spent on a nuclear deterrent from the 1980's despite there no longer being a single state in the world with both the capability and intent to threaten the UK's territorial integrity.

Better get up to AWRE Simon and tie yourself to the gates. Make sure you wear a rucksack and grow a beard....😂

Point is there are some real threats out there, real credible threats to UK security, and we're not doing enough about them. So for example, flu is a credible threat, but there is no credible threat to the UK for which Trident is a deterrent - so which is a better thing to spend £200Billion on - medical research that could cure the flu, or Trident? I mean, the Medical Research Council spend around £1Billion on research annually, so what would life in the UK be like if that £200Billion cost of Trident were to be spent on medical research?

Even more bl00dy overcrowded.

Fine, if that's a threat let's spend £200Billion on birth control.

Just like to attempt to point out that it's not just the UK, apparently it's 74 other countries as well and, that £200 billion wouldn't get spent on the NHS or improvements to cyber security, it would be carved up between different departments and 'special interest' groups with very little to show for it at the end of the day. It's always been the same, throughout history, the doves pursuade us that we don't need the latest and or best means of defense then, when it all goes belly up it's a mad scramble to catch up. It was only luck and chance that we survived the opening blows in ww2 and we still didn't learn the lesson.

It's true, the UK was very nearly invaded in 1940, and today we face threats from cycber-criminality, international terrorism, and global pandemic and we're not doing enough to defend against them.

And the thousands of jobs that would go with trident? Oh wait, Scotland, right, who cares!

Today.

The one option that would lose jobs is to save the £200Billion cost of Trident by cancelling the programme and cutting tax, but I'm not suggesting that, I'm suggesting that as the current tax bill is broadly affordable that the £200Billion cost of Trident be spent instead on defending the UK against real threats that we face today, so specific Trident-related jobs would go but other jobs would be created and no one would lose their livelihood.

Indeed, and I am suggesting that the we should defend against the threats which face the UK today and not what threatened us 50 years ago - else when trouble strikes we'll be as effective as the Polish cavalry were against tanks and machine guns.

Its not actually the technology that causes the issue, its failing to move with the change in the type of warfare. The Boar War we nearly lost because our army found it difficult to cope with guerilla type warfare as opposed to the classic battlefield stuff. Even then, we didn't understand the effect of mechanisation on battlefield war so ended up with the mess of WW1. We failed to see the threat from Germany, actually standing by and seeing it re arm that was the stupidity. Its not the kit, its our failure to anticipate what comes next - even when its staring us in the face.

We spend huge amounts on nuclear defence. Ironically, the basic kit is purchased from America, so one does have to wonder what on earth we actually get from Aldermaston and Harwell? We would have been more prudent to have asked the Americans to keep the base and weapons systems at Greenham.

We need to be ready ro fight the USE when Germany have completed the 4th Reich.😊

Very good

Nonetheless, that basic premise adversely affects our defence thinking. We are no longer a World power; even after Brexit. Just like Greece, Italy, Austro Hungary, our Empire has gone for ever.

And you accuse me of being the fantasist.

It won't be the fatherland, it'll be the motherland, Putin. Corbyn and his Trot's are preparing the ground as we speak.

Don't worry, Putin told David Cameron we are irrelivant.....so no worries

But hold on, as someone pointed out to me on a train just now, 'Ivan in the Street' had a reasonable apartment in town, a job with reasonable hours, sick pay and pension, free and decent health care, the kids went to university for free plus three weeks on the Black Sea every year. So, old son, there might just be few of your mates around who'd hold the door open...

Well it seems like this whole thread is like la la land so I may as well join in. Printing money... Zimbabwe anyone? Vote Corbyn.

The problem with your theory is that you could spend 1 trillion on each of the above and stop none of them. Unless you can find a way of controlling the human brain... And im pretty sure we would both not like that.

Talk about living in the past - it's all about Quantitative Easing these days. Darling and Osborne were pretty keen on it, much more efficient than actually printing the stuf, just juggle the spreadsheet and pretend it exists.

Must be getting on for 10,000 jobs in West Berkshire dependent on it.

That's not an argument, it's just mockery. Can you say specifically what you see to be so absurd.

Ah, the council of despair. That's not a very good argument for doing nothing about the real threats.

Absolutley.

Just think, if we diverted all this professional expertise to peaceful nuclear innovation we'd not need to import French, Chinese or any other 'expert knowledge' to close our energy gap and, who knows, we could well take a World lead.

Would you be happy for the state to prop-up 10,000 non-jobs in an anachronistic industry producing something as awful as nuclear weapons, or would you support local state investment in cyber-security, medical research, and anti-terrorism with a re-training programme to move that workforce over.

Anything that goes bang gets my vote. Terrorists? Show em the sharp end of a gun. Problem solved.

By which I assume you mean nuclear power generation? Something you yourself railed most vociferously against only recently. ☢️

Always worked before, and continues to work, and probably will keep on working for some time to come.

Right on! More of the same wanted.

If you'd actually read the post, you would have seen that I was railing against a the French Nationalised electricity firm building and managing our plants. Thus taking 'high end' jobs from the UK. Ironically, just the sort of intellectual jobs in nuclear physics the organisations round here have, but apply to destructive weapons.

My personal take is that although we probably could meet the country's energy needs using sustainable sources, we've left it far too late to implement before international obligations mean fossil fuel burn us no longer viable. The only acceptable alternative is some type of nuclear station. Again, just to make it sink in, this is exactly why we need high quality UK people so we are not totally reliant on continental or indeed overseas skills.

Hmmmm, nice thought but.......

Vive les francaise ?

Not quite as morally disengaged as some however.

Really? The Russians are threatening us, flying nuclear bombers around our borders and submarines around our coasts. The Russians are on the course of full on expansionism and the ringleaders of a great international conspiracy to subvert democracy.

All wrong. We live in a land of fluffy bunnies and love and all things wonderful. Just a quick question. British Airways has 100000 flights per year. If a few planes crashed each year. What would we do? Pray for the victims and let the planes carry on flying even though we knew.....

Looks as if the Libbies were right all along and we will need the Control Tower again.

Your argument is void.

This is not a binary choice; not one or the other.

There is no mutual exclusivity; you could have both

I don't think anyone has advanced the its all one or the other argument; apart from the Government who are fixated with 'owning' nuclear weapons. They argue (quite rightly) that the national income cake has to be cut into several slices. The slice for defence is then divvied up against the various real or imagined threats we face. Regrettably, our thinking hasn't kept up so our defence budget, most of which is spent propping up a nuclear arsenal, is as out of date and pointless as NTC's civic regalia and doesn't even have the benefit of 'looking nice'.

Of course, we could go down your route and do both, to the full. No issue, but then we start cutting the other slices, hospitals, schools.etc. So if directed against the non Russian threat, we'd be trying to defend our people against a better life style!

No, both options together are too expensive so if you prop-up 10,000 non-jobs in an anachronistic industry producing something as awful as nuclear weapons then even if you wanted to you wouldn't have that £200billion of public money to invest in cyber-security, medical research, and anti-terrorism, and obviously you wouldn't need a re-training programme to move that workforce over if you were happy to keep the anachronistic non-jobs.