I love comedy that makes you see something so much more clearly than you have ever seen it before. The NHS in this country is on it’s knees and will require a £22 billion fund over the next 5 years on top of the £8 billion promised by the government. Trident will cost £23.4 billion to renew. Our education system and social services are also facing terrible cuts.
What is it that we love about trident? The fact that we would never actually use it? The fact that it is a weapon of a bygone era that would be utterly useless in our current world situation? The fact that it has deterred none of the terrorist attacks across the world in the last 15 years?
We have to break the power of the metanarrative that believes that this kind of bomb is what ultimately protects us. It does not. We also have to break the lie that there would be no hope or jobs for the people of Barrow-In-Furness (part of the Bay in which I live) if we stopped commissioning it. There is actually other far more needed work for skilled engineers to be doing. The risk of something going wrong in the process of building this bomb is far more deadly to the people of Barrow than the thought of reimagining the future of the town without it.
This bomb does not bring us peace. It is a colossal waste of money and renewing it at a time when we are making such terrible cuts to education, health, social services and other vital infrastructure is utterly absurd. If we do feel so passionately about keeping it, then I do believe a telethon is the way to go!
