THIS week the Government has announced a half-billion pound budget for the coming year on the Trident nuclear submarine even though the final decision has not yet been made in Parliament.

I can think of many more civilised and needed ways on which such a vast amount could be spent.

Derrick Holt (August 20) tells us that we have to get used to life with the nuclear threat.

I wonder if he knows how many times our involvement with the US nuclear weapons has brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe through computer mistakes?

When he states that the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to save Allied lives, does he realise that Japan was at that very time on the point of signing a peace treaty brokered by Russia?

There are many other countries working for the past decade to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

It is time the United Kingdom joined them and showed good faith in the Non Proliferation Treaty by not wasting our scarce resources in order to add to the nuclear stockpile.

Let us use this money instead for our very underfunded education and health service.

Nuclear weapons will not defend us from terrorism, but are a form of terrorism in themselves.

NUALA YOUNG
Tree Lane
Oxford