The Labour and Tory parties' decision to replace the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system is illegal, immoral, obscenely expensive - and utterly irrelevant to the real security threats we face today.
It is completely hypocritical. How can the UK lecture countries such as Iran on international law designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons when the UK Government is prepared to so blithely ignore it themselves?
And this at a time when the European Commission has warned that nuclear proliferation is the biggest security threat we face. The decision is nuclear madness.
Replacing Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system will cost an estimated £76 billion over the lifetime of the weapons - probably much, much more.
The Government's support for new nuclear weapons has been approved - but only thanks to the support of pro-nuclear Tory MPs.
New Labour faced its largest Commons rebellion since the decision to go to war in Iraq on this issue, and it has already claimed more than one ministerial scalp.
We will be left with an obscenely expensive white elephant that is likely to make the world a more dangerous place.
At best it is irrelevant to the real security threats we face, chief among them climate change, and this represents a missed opportunity to spend the cash on tackling them.
Leslie Dalton
Freeman Avenue,
Eastbourne
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