GIDDY AND THE BOMB

It looks like Mr Osborne has already decided that, no matter what conclusion parliament reaches next year about Trident, he's going to spend in excess of £100,000,000,000 on it anyway.

The only alternative to that assumption is that he's wasting £500,000,000 on upgrading Trident's facility at Faslane for nothing.

Some of the tweets I have read have suggested that 6,000 jobs will be created by this investment, but Mr Osborne himself said that there would be around 1,500 extra jobs over the renovation process.

Much was made during the referendum campaign of the number of jobs that were dependent upon the naval base at Faslane. Jackie Baillie went into overdrive and excelled herself with the lies, warning of 11,000 jobs being at risk in the event of Independence.

Figures released by the MOD under the FOI legislation, however, showed  that only 520 civilian jobs at Faslane and Coulport were directly dependent on Trident.

According to the MoD. “There are 520 civilian jobs at HM Naval Base Clyde, including Coulport and Faslane, which directly rely upon the Trident programme.

"Of them, 159 are employed by the MoD and 361 by the MoD’s contractors, Babcock Marine and Locheed Martin.

"Most of the workers – 310 - live in West Dunbartonshire or Argyll and Bute, with the rest living elsewhere in Scotland (103) or at unknown locations (107)."

So in fact, what we were really talking about appears to be 310 people living in the area and 103 living elsewhere in Scotland... that would be 413 (at the time of the figures being produced).

How many of the new jobs will be for residents of West Dunbartonshire or Argyll and Bute, or the rest of Scotland, and how many of them will be bussed in to camp on a Monday morning, and back out on a Friday afternoon?

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I am happy that Mr Osborne wants to spend that much money in Scotland. It is an enormous amount of extra spending in our country, given the ever shrinking size of the Scottish government's income. I wonder though if it wouldn't be better spent on areas which are in dire need of investment. 

Labour and Tory alike seem at present to be extremely concerned about the lack of money available for colleges of further eduction. It is, in fact, a concern that I share, although I'd point out that England is having exactly the same problem. A lack of finance means that many 6th form colleges are under severe financial pressure!

We must find money for people who wish to pursue education other than that provided by universities. We need plumbers, bricklayers, hairdressers, electricians, plasterers, roofers, etc, etc... This £500 million could make a huge difference to college budgets.

But wait, Mr Osborne says that without Trident we would be in grave danger. It is our insurance policy. (I hope if there is danger lurking, it is a little more effective than the other insurance policy we all thought we had... National Insurance, but that's by the way).

You see, I'm concerned, having friends in many countries over Europe, Asia, South and North America, that you can only be safe if your country has nuclear weapons. I mean what about my friend Elizabeth who lives in Montevideo, Uruguay, or Dirk in Cologne, Germany, Dani in Gothenburg, Hristina in Bulgaria, or Daniel in Québec?

I wish someone in the mainstream press, maybe even the BBC, would ask Mr Osborne what these people are supposed to do to be safe? Come to live in Scotland?  No, maybe not. He doesn't want swarms of immigrants, does he?

The answer is that they are covered, in the highly unlikely chance that they might be attacked, by the USA. 

Now, of course, we could be accused of niggardliness in wanting the protection of the USA's nuclear weapons, but not wanting to pay for them. And that would be a fair criticism. But does Iceland, or Denmark, Germany or Austria, Finland or Norway currently pay for their protection? After all they are all infinitely richer than we are. 

Spo the question is, why does broke Britain pay out this vast amount? 

OK, we know the answer, or at least part of the answer. It's so that the likes of Cameron and Osborne get to sit at the top table and look down smugly on other more successful countries, safe in the knowledge that, as long as they keep bowing low enough, they have a special relationship with the USA.

I've always wondered if it would be acceptable that those of us who feel we need protection would make a small contribution to the financing of these WMDs. After all America has more than they could ever possibly need. OK, the top seat would have to go, but that will only ever affect a handful of people.

In the meantime, the great threat to all of us appears to be from terrorists, who fly planes into buildings or blow up railways and métros.

How is a nuclear deterrent supposed to sort that problem?

Any ideas, George? 

Anyone?