Teachers, Lawyers, MP's. Same protests, same demos. Always the same result.

The protests and Greenham Common and Aldermaston proved that actions of this kind produce nothing. The massive reduction in the European nuclear stockpile was achieved only when fundamental political change took place in the former Soviet Union and the threat of a Red Army invasion was eliminated.

The UK, along with France and the US maintains a European based nuclear deterent because there are States in the world who continue to represent a threat to world stability. Papers released after the fall of the Soviet Union proved that a nuclear response from NATO was the crucial reason why the invasion of West Germany and the Benelux countries did not take place in either 1997 or 1983. Indeed Podgorny as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in May 1977 said that "an advance of Red Army forces into Europe West of the current Polish border is not possible as long as the nuclear option is availabe to the Western military"

If you seriously think that any UK leader would spend Billions of Pounds on a one use defence system when he or she didn't need to because there were no threats then you are bonkers. Even card carrying CND members who have made it to Parliment (and get the security briefing) quickly change their minds.

The elimination of nuclear weapons will only happen when all of the threats to those countries that hold them are eliminated. When Pakistan and India each no longer think the other is going to invade, when the US no longer fears a Muslim bomb or the return of extremism in Russia, when Israel no longer fears an Iran dedicated to eliminating it as a nation.

World disarmament will be achieved through political compromise, the elimination of religion within government and universal free democratic government and not by empty gestures by teachers on their summer holidays !

If you want to change the world and really make it a better place then may I suggest the following.

1 Give £10 a month to Oxfam. This simple low cost gesture will probably do more in your lifetime than any other single act. It will pay for clean water, medication and education for thse who need it

2 Write to your MP with practical suggestions of how the UK government could use its overseas aid budget to influence those countries where extremism is formed. For example UK funded education projects in Jordan have meant there is very little Islamic extremism in the areas where the projects run. Young people are told the truth about Christianity, Judaism, Western Free Market economics and Education.

Of course this comment will be hidden ( any dissent from the accepted IMC rules is) but frankly the protests at Faslane will like those at Greenham before them will be looked back upon as achieving nothing while making those involved just look silly and as such I hope some people will remember me making it.