Monday 4 January 2010

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!


IF NEW TRIDENT SUBS ARE CANCELLED, THEN WHERE'S 'PLAN B' FOR BARROW?


OK, it's most unlikely given that the three main political parties are in favour of a replacement fleet. However, to say that it is unlikely, rather than impossible, suggests there might just be a chance for this to happen!


It is highly unlikely that my house will ever burn to the ground - but I have got it insured against such a possibility. Most sensible homebuyers/owners do this. Now apply this to Barrow job security.

All the big nobs of this town are content to place its future economic well-being on the building of a successor fleet of Trident-bearing nuclear submarines. Indeed, at the annual meeting of Furness Enterprise held at Abbey House in December, Harry Knowles, Chief Executive Officer, 'thanked God' that BAE employed 5,000 locals. And there was much 'positive' and 'encouraging' talk about the new marina, high-tech lighting systems, new factory units and office buildings.

There was no mention of the more than 300 jobs that had been lost at Glaxo last year, the loss of the 'wonderful' carrier centre sections order that was to have created thousands of jobs, the liquidation of Strand Engineering and the recent threat of yet more job losses at Glaxo and a possible drastic reduction in the scope of an already curtailed Waterfront Development. Neither was there mention of all the small businesses that are going to the wall in the town - witness all the boarded-up shop premises on Dalton Road.

But, yes - given that there is nothing else to support the local economy - Barrow needs the new Trident order because nobody is thinking about anything else!
Consider, for just a moment, the following....The people of the United States of America have just elected a president who has a brain. President Barack Obama has stated he desires to see a reduction in nuclear weapons. Despite receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he has agreed to send a further 30,000 US troops into Afghanistan and this makes the award look a little bit dubious. However, a new round of talks on the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) is due any time now and Obama will be looking for some 'bargaining chips' in those negotiations.

I don't know if he has already thought about this but I'll write to him and suggest it anyway....As a gesture of his sincerity towards nuclear arms reduction, he could instruct any British government to forget about a successor Trident fleet. Let's face it, it wouldn't be any skin off his nose, would it? No American workers would be thrown out of a job. It'd make a great impression on those who'd awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize, and the other SALT countries would be encouraged to follow America's lead! And BAE Systems would simply increase its interests in the Electric Boat Company in Houston, Texas.

Just one problem - there's been no 'Plan B' for Barrow and the local population would be reduced to the same misery it endured TWENTY YEARS AGO!

And that Public Meeting (to which the Labour candidate, the local Labour gang, the local Trade Union Council club, the local business 'selfish societies and associations' and the hypocritical 'religious' community avoided like the plague) was meant to consider 'Plan B' as the town's insurance policy. But because so few are bothered there is NO insurance policy. It's Trident or bust (in a country that's flat broke, skint, brassic!)



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