British Politics Thread.

[Wolfshade]

But the NHS over runs it's ring fencedness doesn't it.

£15Bn is the estimated cost, not a lot really is it, it is equivalent to the ring fenced funds for 2% of the uk road network.

[Mr Mystery]

It's £15bn we simply don't need to spend. It's the continuing costs as well. £15bn now, how much next Parliament, just to keep an imagined bogeyman at bay because we might be able to make a futile gesture should it ever come to it.

It's £15bn of cuts we wouldn't need to make to education.

[CoffeeGrunt]

But Mystery, your argument applies just as much to Trident as it does to our Navy, Air Force or other Armed Forces. We don't need them either. Right now. At this particular moment in history. Not really, not to look after our own borders.

However, the moment we got rid of them, we'd almost definitely need them. What do you think had kept the Falkland Islands British? Military threat and posturing, or asking the Argentine government to please stop using it as a political distraction? Because they don't give a fig about what the vote decided, they already decried it as meaningless.

Even Switzerland, a country that gently side-stepped both World Wars, has a pretty formidable standing army and a landscape they've rigged for defence. That's how they managed to avoid said World Wars. Not diplomatic savvy, but being armoured with too tough a shell for anyone to bother attacking. It's the same reason Eurofighter jets gently escort Russian bombers out of British airspace every time they come wandering through.

A military is an important part of every country's identity if only for the sake of being able to provide a response if things get a bit tense. Switzerland even move plans forward for arming itself with nuclear weapons during the Cold War, because it was a weapon that circumvented all their defenses that they couldn't hope to counter. That's the thing. You can't counter nuclear bombs mounted on ICBMs effectively, other than threatening the same in return. Every missile defense system has proved fallible, and the results of a nuke hitting a population center would be so catastrophic that you can't have that be your only line of defense.

In an ideal world, it wouldn't be necessary. Sadly, such a world is not the one we find ourselves in.

[Mr Mystery]

And why do we fight over the Falklands? Political point scoring.

[Kirsten]

But Mystery, your argument applies just as much to Trident as it does to our Navy, Air Force or other Armed Forces. We don't need them either. Right now. At this particular moment in history. Not really, not to look after our own borders.

it doesn't though. we had this argument last time. a nuclear weapon can only destroy. the armed forces intervene, act as police force, protect, defend... the comparison is false.

as for the science of it, that is a pretty pointless argument. 'oh no, nuclear war wont kill 'all' life, just most of it.' because that is totally fine.

[Alaric]

Id be very curious to see what actual vetrans of ww2 woyld say to getting rid of nukes. Since they actually understand living in war I would take their opinion over anyone elses.

[Mr Mystery]

I'd much rather ask the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because, y'know - experience over opinion every time.

[CoffeeGrunt]

it doesn't though. we had this argument last time. a nuclear weapon can only destroy. the armed forces intervene, act as police force, protect, defend... the comparison is false.

as for the science of it, that is a pretty pointless argument. 'oh no, nuclear war wont kill 'all' life, just most of it.' because that is totally fine.

Intervene how, police how, defend how? Our Armed Forces don't intervene or police the populace. They intervene or police in times of massive crisis, or war. They defend a populace with force, often lethal. You don't need an army in peacetime, but every country maintains one. They have tanks, artillery and riflemen, and the funny thing is, all a bullet or bomb can do, is destroy. Yet we maintain these forces because sometimes, we need something destroyed.

We did have this discussion previously, but it went unresolved as such discussions always do. The need for nukes is an eternal Theoretical.

And why do we fight over the Falklands? Political point scoring.

If you want to simplify the issue like that, sure. Or we could point out that one side was an aggressor making an illegitimate claim not backed by the people who lived there. It's easy to wave away the need for military spending if you pretend every issue can be resolved through a quick chat.

Argentina invaded. The Falklands would be out of our hands if we didn't have a military to intervene.

Id be very curious to see what actual vetrans of ww2 woyld say to getting rid of nukes. Since they actually understand living in war I would take their opinion over anyone elses.

People picking over the nuclear bombing of Japan 70 years after the fact kinda remind me of anti-vaxxers. They're so far removed from a threat now resigned to history that they simply can't perceive it the way people at the time did, and react to the measures taken against it as pure evil. The Firebombing of Tokyo did far more damage and claimed more lives, in a slower campaign of burning down the wooden buildings with people inside them.

We can go back-and-forth forever on whether the Japanese would have managed to surrender as a nation without the bombs being dropped. There were far too many factors at play to make the issue so black-and-white.

[Alaric]

I'd much rather ask the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because, y'know - experience over opinion every time.

Exactly.


Disagree CG, huge difference between vaccinations and war. I see what you mean though. As for me, I believe in the "rather have a nuke than be the only one without one." This is the world we live in sadly.

[Mr Mystery]

But it's utterly futile.

Having Nuclear Weapons does not prevent Nuclear War. There's plenty countries out there without them, and they've never been Nuked.

All Trident represents is a pointless ability to share the apocalypse. As I said earlier, anyone insane enough to trigger Nuclear War is not going to be put off because they might get nuked in return. And we'd still all be dead.