Readers' letters - September 27

Scrapping Trident will not make world a safer place

The Labour Party Conference has inevitably raised again the question of retaining or scrapping our nuclear deterrent based on Trident.

As usual, cost and the horrific nature of nuclear weapons is at the forefront of the demand to scrap it.

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The bomb is a horrible weapon, a manifestation of the worst aspects of human nature.

But it cannot be uninvented.

Unilateral disarmament by one or more states will not make the world a safer place.

A report in 2016 by a consortium of nuclear scientists showed that any of the major powers could easily remake a nuclear warhead within months.

The best defence against the nuclear weapon is another nuclear weapon.

All weapons are terrible but they do not cause wars.

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These are caused by hatreds, and animosities based on ethnic, religious, ideological and power factors.

Disarmers have to be admired for their devotion but one is in awe at their stubborn denial of futility.

Mutually assured destruction has proved to be the best strategy for preventing the use of the ultimate weapon.

Despite their childish rhetoric, both Trump and Kim know this.

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The late American Secretary of State, Adlai Stevenson, said: “There is no evil in the atom, only in men’s souls.”

Colonel (retired) Barry Clayton

via email

Judges are not a law unto themselves

Recently I learnt that a

man, who had severely disfigured and partly blinded someone by throwing acid in his face, had his sentence reduced from ‘life’ to eight years imprisonment.

I expect that most people will be disturbed and angered by the picture of

the victim’s face, and

the reduction of the sentence.

However, I ask that in cases like this when original sentencing is overturned, isn’t it in the “public interest” to be made aware of the rationale behind such action, making the judges accountable for their decisions, and to the public whom they serve?

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Obviously extenuating circumstances will have been considered, which I assume most right-minded people would also deem relevant.

So by explaining their actions, we, the public, may have a better understanding behind these decisions, leading hopefully to less anger and annoyance.

It all depends on the quality of the decision-making process in each

case, but at least we should be made aware of them,

and know that our judges

are doing their jobs properly.

Roger Crossley

Address supplied

Spend money on lives, not HS2

I would like to ask you to inform your readers about the £56bn that the Government is going to spend on a new railway system to keep an extra few passengers happy.

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Yet they will not release enough money to the NHS to stop 10,000 people from dying every year because the NHS has neither the staff or equipment to make sure they are well.

This has been going on for many years and the Government has done nothing about it.

Here they are with £56bn to use and they spend it on the railways, and specifically HS2, instead of a system which can treat millions of patients a year if they had the money. I would implore you to write to either your MP or the Secretary for Health and ask him/her why this situation exists in what is supposed to be a modern country.

Mr P Weaver

via email

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