Poll: Trident - would you renew? (Poll)

Would you renew Trident?

  • Yes

    Votes: 701 73.7%

  • No

    Votes: 250 26.3%
  • Total voters
    951
Drizmod said:
I have a question. When people say its a waste of money what exactly happens to the money? Does it stay in the UK economy or does it go abroad somewhere never to be seen again?
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Good question. Lots of info on wikipedia.

The current subs were designed and built by Vickers (now a subsidiary of BAE) in Barrow-in-Furness.

The warheads are made the Atomic Weapons Establishment (part of the MoD but privately managed by a consortium of Jacobs Engineering Group, Lockheed Martin UK and Serco) in Berkshire.

The missiles are/were built by Lockheed Martin in the USA.

There is a bit on cost below:

In the 1990s, the total acquisition cost of the Trident programme was £9.8 billion, 38 per cent of which was incurred in the United States. In 2005–06, annual expenditure for the running and capital costs was estimated at between £1.2bn and £1.7bn and was estimated to rise to £2bn to £2.2bn in 2007–08, including Atomic Weapons Establishment costs. Since Trident became operational in 1994, annual expenditure has ranged between 3 and 4.5 per cent of the annual defence budget, and was projected to increase to 5.5 per cent of the defence budget by 2007–08.[35] As of 2009, each missile cost the United States government nearly £16.8 million ($29.1 m) to build.[34]
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so up to 62% of the money was initially spent in the UK. Maintenance costs probably stay mostly in the UK, apart from new missiles.
 
I can understand the reasons not to renew, cost etc but I think now with everything happening in the world and leaving the EU I think we need it.
 
sgavan said:
I can understand the reasons not to renew, cost etc but I think now with everything happening in the world and leaving the EU I think we need it.
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Because everyone's readying their country-levelling weapons of mass destruction right now? :confused:
 
Hey, maybe we can have a referendum on it. Promise to use it to scare away immigrants or support the NHS, or whatever.

Turkey's joining the EU dontchaknow. We can let everyone know how fast we can deliver a nuke on Ankara.
 
I'm a liberal, but go against the LD's standing on this.

We have to renew, especially in the current climate. No-one wants to get caught with their pants down.
 
Personally, I'd vote not to renew. A completely useless boondoggle that has no beneficial effect for the UK, and will never, ever be launched.

However, as a politician, I'd vote to renew: it's simply not worth the political cost of cancelling Trident for the meaningless difference that a weapon we're never, ever going to launch will make. Think of it as an over-priced employment scheme for Scotland.

Or, if we're allowed a more nuanced response than yes/no: we should probably compromise on a less costly nuclear defence scheme. There is utterly no need to maintain a constantly active nuclear "deterrent" in the current world so there should be room to reduce the scale and cost of our system.

However, what will happen is that Trident renewal gets voted through.
 
What we going to use it for? Threaten to melt a few radicalised people with it? No one needs nuclear weapons.

Chris Wilson said:
Renew and increase military spending in general. Bring back National Service as well.
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Unless I'd escape this as a scientist, I'd rather be jailed. But, the money saved on Trident could be used for better funding the armed forces, policing, education, NHS..
 
Tell the world that we're renewing and then build some full-size replicas out of balsawood. If we're not going to fire them, it'll have the same effect but for a lot less money.
 
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