[LeatherTrumpet]

Do you think we should scrap all nuclear weapons and spend the money on caring for the sick and elderly?

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£3 billion of our taxes are spent on Trident each year.

► By comparison, building a state-of-the-art hospital costs around £545 million.
► Providing free school dinners for children from families in receipt of Universal Credit would cost around £500 million per year.
► Or pay for 150,000 new nurses and teachers every year for over 30 years, or quadruple Britain’s annual investment in renewable energy, or create 180,000 new jobs in housing construction.

http://www.rethinktrident.org.uk/the...t-replacement/

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What is Trident?

A sea-based nuclear weapons system. It was acquired by the Thatcher government in the early 1980s as a replacement for the Polaris missile system which the UK had possessed since the 1960s. Trident then came into use in the 1990s.

There are three parts to Trident - submarines, missiles and warheads. Although each component has years of use left, they cannot last indefinitely. The current generation of four submarines would begin to end their working lives some time in the late 2020s.

Work on a replacement cannot be delayed because the submarines alone could take up to 17 years to develop.

Only one submarine is on patrol at any one time and it needs several days' notice to fire.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13442735