John Mason has signed up for the campaign to oppose nuclear weapons. This campaign has been organised by ’Scotland’s for peace’, an umbrella group including Scottish CND, STUC, and a range of Scottish churches. The three statements that they are asking candidates to sign up to are:
• The Scottish Parliament should continue to call on the UK Government not to go ahead with the current proposal to replace Trident;
• The Scottish Parliament should call on the UK Government to cease the deployment of Trident;
• The Scottish Parliament should support a Nuclear Weapons Convention (a global ban on nuclear weapons).
As well as committing to these three points, John added on his response form, “We should also oppose nuclear power as well as nuclear weapons.”

It is desperately disappointing that successive Labour and Conservative governments in London have continued to support nuclear weapons. For me it is firstly a moral question that these weapons should never be used. What is the point of winning a future world war, if most of the countries of the world are left uninhabitable?

There is also the practical point that these nuclear weapons were largely developed to challenge the Nazi and Soviet blocks. It is doubtful how effective they would be against the terrorist and guerrilla tactics used against our forces in modern day warfare.

And thirdly they are a huge waste of money. Our schools, universities, and local services are being starved of resources, not just because of the banking crisis and economic recession but also because the resources we do have are being wrongly squandered on these weapons.