The Labour Party have been making noises about increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP which would could require several billion pounds more annually, with the UK’s military spending for 2024-2025 pegged at £64.4 billion.
However, with the economy bumping along the bottom it raises the obvious question of how will the increase be funded?
Will our taxes go up to pay for it or will services be cut or budgets from other departments trimmed even though the previous Government cut almost anything that could be cut over the last 14 years.
Something i heard is cutting the Aid budget again, it is already at a reduced 0.5% of GDP or £10 billion, that is 6 times less on improving peoples lives than we pay on buying the bombs and bullets to take lives which is beyond obscene.
Keir Starmer could use it as an excuse to take us back into the EU Single Market, that would be an injection of the 4% of GDP we lost when we foolishly voted ourselves out but there is something else we could consider, get rid of the ridiculous Nuclear Weapons.
The Governments own website spells out that the initial cost of the Nuclear upgrade in 2017 was £133 billion and the annual upkeep of our nuclear weapons is £20 billion a year. If we have that sort of money knocking around to spend on nuclear missiles, then why are we wasting it on a way of killing millions of people rather than building schools and hospitals and paying the staff a decent wage?
The problem with nuclear weapons is if they are ever used, that would be the end of the World as launching a nuclear missile will not go unanswered and guarantee that whatever devastation you wreak on your enemy, the same will be wreaked on you, in a nuclear war, nobody wins, everybody loses.
There are a few who argue that we still need to retain our nuclear weapons for our safety although recent years has seen terrorist attacks in America, UK, Israel, China and Russia so the possession of nuclear weapons does not make a state secure and are absolutely no use against terrorists and the only point i can see for them, unless you count contributing to ending all human and animal life on the planet as an aim.
So there's your choices Mr Starmer, cut essential services and put up our taxes or scrap an exorbitantly expensive weapon we will never use or if we do use will mean there will be no need to fund anything else as we will be yet another lifeless rock circling a Star.