Trident is expensive and unwieldy – it’s time to spend our money elsewhere

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The government has committed to paying £42bn to replace Trident (Getty Images)

The stand-off with Iran in the Gulf has brought into sharp focus the desperate shortage of ships in the Royal Navy. In consequence, we have had to call on our European partners (how ironic) to help with escorting our tankers.

I am reminded of what Admiral Nelson famously said after the Battle of the Nile: “Were I to die at this moment, want of frigates would be found stamped on my heart” – a sentiment that his successors are publicly expressing today.

The problem could be solved with a bigger defence budget but, with the new PM promising more money for the NHS, the police and a swathe of other underfunded budgets, there is only one other place it can come from. The government has committed to paying £42bn to replace (and £2bn-3bn per year to maintain) Trident continuously at sea into the 2050s despite it having been at “several days’ notice to fire” for nearly 25 years for lack of any targets. Should we not be putting today’s defence, social, and environmental problems ahead of nuclear weapons?

Robert Forsyth
Deddington

Jacob Rees-Mogg is a clown

Readers might be interested to hear of the next set of instructions that Rees-Mogg will be issuing to his minions over the next few weeks. Morning Dress will not be worn Post Meridiem. All those without any knowledge of Latin will be required to attend corrective instruction in their own time. Any staff lacking in other areas of proper education and manners will not be allowed to address the minister at any time.

Anyone not dressed appropriately will be not be allowed access to any government office; men will wear suitably tailored suiting – only the bespoke tailor list approved by the minister may be used – and women should wear appropriately modest clothing; if in doubt the most suitable reference is in the Victoria and Albert Museum: History of Fashion 1840 to 1900.

Outdoors all males will remove their headdress and remain stationary if they encounter the minister and will not speak unless addressed; women will not be allowed in the presence of the minister in public. When indoors the knuckling of the forehead when meeting the minister will be obligatory for all males; women will curtsy and avoid any eye contact. Further rules will be announced in due course.

Matt Minshall​
Norfolk

As if one comedian in high office were not sufficient the UK now has two. Apparently the priority of Jacob Rees-Mogg on assuming office is to reinstate imperial measurement and the suffix esquire for all non-titled males.

Perhaps we were wrong to worry about austerity cuts to NHS schools and welfare. What really matters is the abolition of metric measurements. Our new golden age?

Doreen Wilkinson
Ewell

Exit the EU, enter the US’s economic sphere

President Trump and Boris Johnson’s intention to sign the mother of all trade deals after a no-deal departure on 31 October confirms what many have suspected and feared all along. Brexit, the extraction of the UK from the economic sphere of influence of the EU, is only one side of the project of Messrs Farage, Fox and the rest of the Brexiteers.

The other, the reaction to the action, as Newton might say, is Brentry, the immersion of the UK into the economic sphere of the USA. Chlorinated chicken, anyone?

Colin Burke
Manchester

What’s the truth Boris?

Britain’s new prime minister Boris Johnston is double-talking. He is telling his backbenchers that “the backstop has to go” and telling “his friends in Ireland that under no circumstances will there be a hard border”. One posture flies in the face of the other and represents the politics of telling everybody what they want to hear when they want to hear it.

The United Kingdom believes it’s in the driving seat, but the EU and Irish government are sticking to the game plan already agreed, but not ratified, by the UK. Time is running out as flamboyant Johnston gives false succour that a new deal can be done, as he races to the finish line come hell or high water. Brexit may turn out to be a doomsday device capable of doing enormous damage with Britain crashing out without a vital deal to secure a future trade deal with EU member states.

Maurice Fitzgerald
Ireland

Social cleansing is a real phenomenon

Whatever Sean O’Grady thought about Geoff Norcott’s programme How the Middle Classes Ruined Britain, his ill-informed comments on the gentrification of council estates displayed complete ignorance of what is happening.

I am sure many council tenants would love better, safer homes but developers are not upgrading these estates out of the goodness of their hearts to give tenants safer, more pleasant homes, but building private homes for profit. Councils are telling tenants they can come back after redevelopment but it would be at higher rents and insecure tenancies.

Homes bought by tenants under the right to buy scheme are being compulsorily purchased and owners offered below market price compensation, thus preventing them from buying into that area again. Meanwhile, tenants are offered alternative accommodation in areas far away from, jobs, schools, friends and relations.

Cannes regularly runs “property fairs” attended by international property developers and council leaders from the UK. Social cleansing seems exactly the right name for this.

Jill Rooney
Address supplied