The 2024 General Election - July 4th

[aintforever]

1 minute ago, badgerx16 said:

No they are not BECAUSE there is a deterrent capability within the alliance.

True, which means we would have the same deterrent within the alliance.

[sadoldgit]

21 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I literally can’t think of anything in the history of humanity which could be more of a deterrent than a big red button that turns your enemy’s entire country into radioactive ash in 0.0001 seconds. How anyone can call that, "not a deterrent," I cannot fathom.

It doesn’t seem to deter people from attacking Israel. Russia and the US have enough warheads to destroy the planet several times over. We are small fry. As said, we can’t even feed our kids, fix our roads, run our hospitals, run our criminal justice system, build hi tech railways etc. but at least we can find billions of pounds to spend on nukes that we will never, ever use. 
Why does Putin give a shiny shit about us if he doesn’t about other NATO countries away from his borders? Because we have nukes. Without them we are of no interest to him. 

[badgerx16]

4 minutes ago, aintforever said:

True, which means we would have the same deterrent within the alliance.

What sort of signal would UK unilateral nuclear disarmament send to Putin in the current climate ?

[badgerx16]

5 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

It doesn’t seem to deter people from attacking Israel.

Nulear deterrence is exactly what it says on the tin - a deterrence against nuclear attack. Israel maintains second strike capability because it doesn't trust Iran, there is no circumstance under which Israel would use a nuclear first strike or retaliatory weapons launch against any of it's immediate neighbours..

Our having nukes didn't stop Argentina from invading the Falklands.

Edited June 10 by badgerx16

[Lighthouse]

3 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

It doesn’t seem to deter people from attacking Israel. Russia and the US have enough warheads to destroy the planet several times over. We are small fry. As said, we can’t even feed our kids, fix our roads, run our hospitals, run our criminal justice system, build hi tech railways etc. but at least we can find billions of pounds to spend on nukes that we will never, ever use. 
Why does Putin give a shiny shit about us if he doesn’t about other NATO countries away from his borders? Because we have nukes. Without them we are of no interest to him. 

I CBA with that nonsense. As for Israel - Hamas have a death wish, they want everyone to die.

[aintforever]

9 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

What sort of signal would UK unilateral nuclear disarmament send to Putin in the current climate ?

Not a good one. I don’t think it’s the right time to disarm just pointing out that as part of NATO we would still have a deterrent even without Trident.

Also I don’t think we should be too worried about Russia, they are struggling to take Kharkiv which is just 18 miles from their border in a country without nukes so I don’t give them much hope of invading us.

Edited June 10 by aintforever

[buctootim]

2 hours ago, pingpong said:

I assume most, if not all of us, would agree that we'd rather be nuked than nuke someone else.

Given that, it just doesn't act as a deterrent...

I'd certainly retaliate after being nuked though. Morally you can certainly justify wiping out the person / country that started a nuclear war.

[CB Fry]

8 hours ago, pingpong said:

I assume most, if not all of us, would agree that we'd rather be nuked than nuke someone else.

Given that, it just doesn't act as a deterrent...

Um, personally, if I am going to die in a nuclear holocaust, I would rather go knowing that at least we did stick it to the fucking (eg) Russians first.

What an exciting four hours that would be.

[revolution saint]

If we got nuked then we wouldn't have to worry about immigration and would definitely STOP THE BOATS.  Maybe something for Reform to think about there.

[Gloucester Saint]

7 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

It matters to me, wanting to scrap trident is the absolute #1 hard no, in my book. I'll never vote for anyone who puts that in their manifesto.

As Labour found out the hard way in the 1980s, their nuclear disarmament policy from the left cost them many, many votes.

[Fan The Flames]

18 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

As Labour found out the hard way in the 1980s, their nuclear disarmament policy from the left cost them many, many votes.

And they still get questioned on it now.

[Lord Duckhunter]

8 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

It doesn’t seem to deter people from attacking Israel.

Someone give him his fiver back FFS. 
 

Nuclear weapons are fucking useless, didn’t stop the IRA from bombing London or 9/11. 😂 

[whelk]

8 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

It doesn’t seem to deter people from attacking Israel. Russia and the US have enough warheads to destroy the planet several times over. We are small fry. As said, we can’t even feed our kids, fix our roads, run our hospitals, run our criminal justice system, build hi tech railways etc. but at least we can find billions of pounds to spend on nukes that we will never, ever use. 
Why does Putin give a shiny shit about us if he doesn’t about other NATO countries away from his borders? Because we have nukes. Without them we are of no interest to him. 

You are genuinely getting more stupid by the week

[whelk]

1 hour ago, CB Fry said:

Um, personally, if I am going to die in a nuclear holocaust, I would rather go knowing that at least we did stick it to the fucking (eg) Russians first.

What an exciting four hours that would be.

I’m hoping to survive as a gunfighting ghoul without a nose

[whelk]

1 hour ago, Gloucester Saint said:

As Labour found out the hard way in the 1980s, their nuclear disarmament policy from the left cost them many, many votes.

Absolutely, like Lighthouse I would never vote for party that wanted to disarm however much they like feeding kids

Edited June 11 by whelk

[whelk]

10 hours ago, pingpong said:

I assume most, if not all of us, would agree that we'd rather be nuked than nuke someone else.

Given that, it just doesn't act as a deterrent...

Err no and very strange logic indeed. Are you a masochist? 

[badgerx16]

OK lads, let us all ignore the last decade-plus of Tory misrule and fall for their blatant illusory bribe of an apparent 2p cut in NI.

They also say they will cut the welfare bill by over £12Bn with 4 main courses of action. However, the IFS has aleady debunked this by saying 3 of these plans were in previous government proposals and so have already been included in OBR forecasts - they cannot be counted twice.

Edited June 11 by badgerx16

[sadoldgit]

38 minutes ago, whelk said:

Absolutely, like Lighthouse I would never vote for party that wanted to disarm however much they like feeding kids

There is a huge difference to disarming and spending vast quantities of money on a weapons system that we will never us. We don’t have enough of what we need for conventional/modern warfare so why bother with nukes when we are always going to be a bit part player anyway? Despite huge piles of the things, it hasn’t stopped Putin as he knows damned well that we will never us them. It didn’t stop Argentina from invading the Falklands because they knew we would never use them. The whole deterrent argument is spurious and plays into Putin’s hands. He pretends that he is mad enough to use them so the West backs off. He knows we won’t use them first so he gradually and incrementally gets the land he wants. Not much of a deterrent if they don’t deter aggression in the first place. War is being waged in many different ways now and that is where we need to be spending our defence budget. We have nukes which won’t be fired but not enough tanks, soldiers, warships, planes, drones, cyber capabilities etc. Things that are needed and would be used.

The notion that we are safer with nukes is risible. If there is to be a WW3 the first thing Putin would do is take out our nuclear capacity. This island would be ash before we laid a glove on Russia.

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

There is a huge difference to disarming and spending vast quantities of money on a weapons system that we will never us. We don’t have enough of what we need for conventional/modern warfare so why bother with nukes when we are always going to be a bit part player anyway? Despite huge piles of the things, it hasn’t stopped Putin as he knows damned well that we will never us them. It didn’t stop Argentina from invading the Falklands because they knew we would never use them. The whole deterrent argument is spurious and plays into Putin’s hands. He pretends that he is mad enough to use them so the West backs off. He we won’t use them first so he gradually and incrementally gets the land he wants. Not much of a deterrent if they don’t deter aggression in the first place. War is being waged in many different ways now and that is where we need to be spending our defence budget. We have nukes which won’t be fired but not enough tanks, soldiers, warships, planes, drones, cyber capabilities etc. Things that are needed and would be used.

The notion that we are safer with nukes is risible. If there is to be a WW3 the first thing Putin would do is take out our nuclear capacity. This island would be ash before we laid a glove on Russia.

if there is one thing paying your fiver has done is quash the myth you are the greatest wind up merchant of all time playing everybody like a cheap fiddle and proven that you are without doubt an absolute clown 🤡

[sadoldgit]

1 hour ago, whelk said:

You are genuinely getting more stupid by the week

Me and many other very intelligent people it seems.

[aintforever]

3 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

We have nukes which won’t be fired but not enough tanks, soldiers, warships, planes, drones, cyber capabilities etc. Things that are needed and would be used.

I'm not for disarming at this moment in time but this is a fair point. Being part of NATO already gives us a nuclear deterrent (all be it not independent) could the money saved on nukes be better spent elsewhere?  

[sadoldgit]

9 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

I CBA with that nonsense. As for Israel - Hamas have a death wish, they want everyone to die.

And other Middle Eastern countries? 

[Turkish]

5 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Me and many other very intelligent people it seems.

i see one of the other "very intelligent people" who backs you up has coined the nickname aintclever on this forum

🤣

[hypochondriac]

All a bit irrelevant. Getting rid of our nuclear deterrent is never going to be popular enough to be a viable option. Thankfully. 

[sadoldgit]

9 hours ago, aintforever said:

Not a good one. I don’t think it’s the right time to disarm just pointing out that as part of NATO we would still have a deterrent even without Trident.

Also I don’t think we should be too worried about Russia, they are struggling to take Kharkiv which is just 18 miles from their border in a country without nukes so I don’t give them much hope of invading us.

Russia has zero interest in invading the UK. We are more of a threat/target for Putin with nukes or US nukes on our soil.

As for votes, the younger generations don’t have the same attachment to nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament will become a bigger vote winner over time.

We have seen what the Iron Dome can do with conventional missiles. Put the money towards a decent defence system so that we no longer become a target because we pose a nuclear threat.

The NATO deterrent lies mostly with the US who have the numbers and the capability to worry Russia/China/North Korea. Does anyone really think that our contribution, that we struggle to fund and maintain, will be missed by NATO that much?

If there is an escalation in the ground war in Europe we will need to provide conventional forces, not nukes.

[Lighthouse]

If we give up our nuclear weapons, NATO security will still be assured.

 

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Just so long as the US doesn't elect a president who's basically Putin's puppet, with a massive boner for Russia, who has repeatedly talked about abandoning NATO because many countries aren't paying their share of the bill.

[sadoldgit]

5 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

If we give up our nuclear weapons, NATO security will still be assured.

 

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Just so long as the US doesn't elect a president who's basically Putin's puppet, with a massive boner for Russia, who has repeatedly talked about abandoning NATO because many countries aren't paying their share of the bill.

In which case NATO is buggered anyway.

For the benefit of Whelk, this argument about nuclear weapons as a deterrent has been written by an intelligent person.

https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/153_wilson.pdf

 

[Lighthouse]

16 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

In which case NATO is buggered anyway.

For the benefit of Whelk, this argument about nuclear weapons as a deterrent has been written by an intelligent person.

https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/153_wilson.pdf

 

Unless there was some other NATO country with over 200 nuclear weapons.

[Turkish]

Just get rid of nuclear weapons. It's easy

Just tell them release all the hostages and arrange a ceasefire, it's easy

Just tell everyone to stop being horrible to each other, it's easy

Just post on the internet what you think about it all and everyone will agree and change the world to your way of thinking, it's easy

🤡🤡🤡

 

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, sadoldgit said:

 

The notion that we are safer with nukes is risible. If there is to be a WW3 the first thing Putin would do is take out our nuclear capacity. This island would be ash before we laid a glove on Russia.

If he can find it.

[whelk]

SOG the military strategist argues that there’s no point having nuclear weapons because they’d be wiped out before we use them. Simple. Although not surprised 

Also if we were ever going to use them we’d have nuked Buenos Aires in 1982. Not sure he has grasped the subject.

Oh and I don’t know why I bother, but your moronic reasoning that it hasn’t stopped people attacking Israel. Let’s see what happens to Tehran if they launched a full scale invasion into Israel. Although we all know in that conflict who you’d be supporting.
 

 

[hypochondriac]

When soggy posts in this manner it's like talking to my 15 year old relative who just regurgitates what their teacher has told them (in soggy's case it would be James O'brien) and then when you scratch the surface by asking any questions, their brain locks up and they have no answers. Because when you're young you get most of your opinions from authority figures and do very little thinking of your own. Most people grow out of that but not always...

Edited June 11 by hypochondriac

[Fan The Flames]

There was a time when it seemed that the world was moving into a peaceful stasis. The USSR was over and China was happy to be a sleeping dragon, the dictatorships in South America were over, South East Asia was calm, apartheid was bust and the rest of Africa was just Africa and nothing to worry about, the middle east was mad but It always is and as long as we got oil it wasn't going to spoil the party. It seemed that the journey was ever onwards and that the rules based order had won.

It doesn't feel like that anymore. Talking about the nuclear deterrent was fine then, but we need it now.

Edited June 11 by Fan The Flames

[LuckyNumber7]

2 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

There is a huge difference to disarming and spending vast quantities of money on a weapons system that we will never us. We don’t have enough of what we need for conventional/modern warfare so why bother with nukes when we are always going to be a bit part player anyway? Despite huge piles of the things, it hasn’t stopped Putin as he knows damned well that we will never us them. It didn’t stop Argentina from invading the Falklands because they knew we would never use them. The whole deterrent argument is spurious and plays into Putin’s hands. He pretends that he is mad enough to use them so the West backs off. He knows we won’t use them first so he gradually and incrementally gets the land he wants. Not much of a deterrent if they don’t deter aggression in the first place. War is being waged in many different ways now and that is where we need to be spending our defence budget. We have nukes which won’t be fired but not enough tanks, soldiers, warships, planes, drones, cyber capabilities etc. Things that are needed and would be used.

The notion that we are safer with nukes is risible. If there is to be a WW3 the first thing Putin would do is take out our nuclear capacity. This island would be ash before we laid a glove on Russia.

Hasn't stopped Putin from what exactly? Last time I checked he hadn't invaded us or any other nuclear power/NATO, whereas he has attacked non-nuclear armed Ukraine. Seems the deterrent is working pretty well? If Ukraine still possessed nukes I doubt we'd be seeing the ongoing war now.

It's also the reason why we/NATO refuse to get directly involved in Ukraine, so seems the deterrent is working pretty well for Russia too?

[sadoldgit]

54 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

Hasn't stopped Putin from what exactly? Last time I checked he hadn't invaded us or any other nuclear power/NATO, whereas he has attacked non-nuclear armed Ukraine. Seems the deterrent is working pretty well? If Ukraine still possessed nukes I doubt we'd be seeing the ongoing war now.

It's also the reason why we/NATO refuse to get directly involved in Ukraine, so seems the deterrent is working pretty well for Russia too?

From doing what he has done and is continuing to do in invading sovereign territories. He hasn’t invaded a NATO country yet but is is looking to expand his empire and must have factored in that whilst the West might complain and offer military assistance, he wasn’t going to face the threat of a nuclear strike in support. Nations with nukes are being attack. It doesn’t prevent terrorism. It doesn’t stop war. Unless the other person believes that you will fire first, it really doesn’t act as a deterrent. We are never going to fire first.

Listening to Sunak, is he talking about the same country? And why if all of these ideas are so brilliant, where have they been over the last 14 years?

Still banging on about £2000!

Edited June 11 by sadoldgit

[badgerx16]

43 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

From doing what he has done and is continuing to do in invading sovereign territories. He hasn’t invaded a NATO country yet but is is looking to expand his empire and must have factored in that whilst the West might complain and offer military assistance, he wasn’t going to face the threat of a nuclear strike in support. Nations with nukes are being attack. It doesn’t prevent terrorism. It doesn’t stop war. Unless the other person believes that you will fire first, it really doesn’t act as a deterrent. We are never going to fire first.

Listening to Sunak, is he talking about the same country? And why if all of these ideas are so brilliant, where have they been over the last 14 years?

Still banging on about £2000!

1) Do you honestly think that the West should have used nuclear weapons to stop Putin ? However, there is a reason he hasn't used them in Ukraine.

2) If a terrorist organisation carried out a dirty bomb attack, who would we nuke in response ? They are not intended as counter-terrorism tools.

3) Deterrence is NOT about who fires first, it is the promise of massive retaliation. Teacher didn't cane you in anticipation of your being naughty.

Edited June 11 by badgerx16

[tdmickey3]

File the Tory manifesto in same lying, bullshitting, fairytale section as the one launched by mr shouty mcshouty face yesterday

Edited June 11 by tdmickey3

[LuckyNumber7]

55 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

From doing what he has done and is continuing to do in invading sovereign territories. He hasn’t invaded a NATO country yet but is is looking to expand his empire and must have factored in that whilst the West might complain and offer military assistance, he wasn’t going to face the threat of a nuclear strike in support. Nations with nukes are being attack. It doesn’t prevent terrorism. It doesn’t stop war. Unless the other person believes that you will fire first, it really doesn’t act as a deterrent. We are never going to fire first.

Listening to Sunak, is he talking about the same country? And why if all of these ideas are so brilliant, where have they been over the last 14 years?

Still banging on about £2000!

Right, so your argument is that Britain having nuclear weapons hasn't deterred Putin from invading Ukraine, who doesn't have nuclear weapons?

The point is he hasn't attacked us (or any other nuclear armed country). We are not going to nuke Russia for invading Ukraine ffs. He is invading sovereign territories that don't have nukes, not ones that do. It is exactly because Russia does have nukes that we are afraid of getting more directly involved in Ukraine.

And of course having nukes doesn't prevent terrorism. Who should we have nuked after the 7/7 attacks?

[Wade Garrett]

This campaign has been mildly interesting as Rishi limps from one disaster to the next.  It’s as if he’s had enough and just wants it to end.  Apparently he’s booked Disney World for July 5th.

[sadoldgit]

39 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

Right, so your argument is that Britain having nuclear weapons hasn't deterred Putin from invading Ukraine, who doesn't have nuclear weapons?

The point is he hasn't attacked us (or any other nuclear armed country). We are not going to nuke Russia for invading Ukraine ffs. He is invading sovereign territories that don't have nukes, not ones that do. It is exactly because Russia does have nukes that we are afraid of getting more directly involved in Ukraine.

And of course having nukes doesn't prevent terrorism. Who should we have nuked after the 7/7 attacks?

My point was that if potential allies of the people you attack have nuclear weapons it would be sensible for the aggressor to factor that in, yes? If they still go ahead, the deterrent hasn’t worked very well.

We shouldn’t have nuked anyone, that is the point. We are spending billions of pounds on weapons we will never use and are still vulnerable to terrorist and cyber attacks when we should be providing more money for the underfunded armed forces and make better provision for defence for both the UK and NATO.

Actually the SaintsWeb might just have found the answer to guaranteed world peace. Provide every country on the planet with nuclear weapons and everyone will be deterred from attacking anyone else ever again 😉

[sadoldgit]

1 hour ago, tdmickey3 said:

File the Tory manifesto in same lying, bullshitting, fairytale section as the one launched by mr shouty mcshouty face yesterday

I’m no economic expert, but if you cut stamp duty for first time buyers, won’t that led to a housing price hike?

Also his promise of multiple tax cuts, isn’t that all a bit Liz Truss? More cuts to public services to pay for them?

Edited June 11 by sadoldgit

[Turkish]

10 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I’m no economic expert, but if you cut stamp duty for first time buyers, won’t that led to a housing price hike?

Also his promise of multiple tax cuts, isn’t that all a bit Liz Truss? More cuts to public services to pay for them?

Fuck me, you think you're an expert of everything else.

[Lord Duckhunter]

15 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I’m no economic expert,

First sensible statement since you coughed up a fiver. Keep it up. 

[Challenger]

46 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

My point was that if potential allies of the people you attack have nuclear weapons it would be sensible for the aggressor to factor that in, yes? If they still go ahead, the deterrent hasn’t worked very well.

We shouldn’t have nuked anyone, that is the point. We are spending billions of pounds on weapons we will never use and are still vulnerable to terrorist and cyber attacks when we should be providing more money for the underfunded armed forces and make better provision for defence for both the UK and NATO.

Actually the SaintsWeb might just have found the answer to guaranteed world peace. Provide every country on the planet with nuclear weapons and everyone will be deterred from attacking anyone else ever again 😉

Keep this to yourself but our nukes don't appear to work.

[badgerx16]

1 minute ago, Challenger said:

Keep this to yourself but our nukes don't appear to work.

Chances are Russia's don't either.

[egg]

46 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I’m no economic expert, but if you cut stamp duty for first time buyers, won’t that led to a housing price hike?

Also his promise of multiple tax cuts, isn’t that all a bit Liz Truss? More cuts to public services to pay for them?

Yes to all 3 questions. What it also does is cause another financial black hole. 

[badgerx16]

52 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I’m no economic expert, but if you cut stamp duty for first time buyers, won’t that led to a housing price hike?

Also his promise of multiple tax cuts, isn’t that all a bit Liz Truss? More cuts to public services to pay for them?

£5Bn gained by closing down tax loopholes, ( as if ), and up to '£16Bn saved by welfare reform, mainly removing the mentally ill from PIP. The only problem is most of that is double counted as it has already been announced and factored into forecasts.

Edited June 11 by badgerx16

[Fan The Flames]

1 hour ago, Wade Garrett said:

This campaign has been mildly interesting as Rishi limps from one disaster to the next.  It’s as if he’s had enough and just wants it to end.  Apparently he’s booked Disney World for July 5th.

[Wade Garrett]

9 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

Rishi is the gift that keeps on giving.

[Challenger]

1 hour ago, badgerx16 said:

Chances are Russia's don't either.

The Russians have various delivery methods via land (fixed and mobile), sea and air. We have just the one via a single (on station) sub which on the last two occasions has conducted failed test launches.

In a toe to toe nuke exchange, we (the UK ) would be runners up.