On August 6 and 9, 1945, two nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. They killed twice as many people as who live in Oxford.
Today each nuclear warhead on the missiles carried by Britain’s Trident submarines could each kill eight times that many.
Nuclear weapons are useless, illegal and could destroy our planet. But the Coalition Government has already begun to spend up to £25bn on renewing Trident. We should be spending that money on jobs, the health service and schools.
These doomsday toys are no use tackling terrorism, fighting in Afghanistan or bringing peace to Syria.
Nuclear missiles by their nature destroy mainly civilians. Even a limited exchange of say 50 nuclear weapons would produce not only widespread radiation but a catastrophic nuclear winter.
Britain should be an example to the world by scrapping its weapons of mass destruction. Oxford has declared itself a ‘nuclear free’ city, but it is time we began to create a world free of all nuclear weapons.
JOHN TANNER (Labour Cllr) Board Member for a Cleaner, Greener Oxford City Councillor for Littlemore & County Councillor for Isis
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