If the government says there is no money for health, for education, for jobs, that we must cut back spending and embrace austerity, then why is it wasting money on nuclear weapons? Why is it spending over £2 billion a year on the existing system, and why is it planning to spend over £100 billion on building a new one? Can we eat it? Is it good for our health? Does it bring jobs? The answer is a resounding NO to all these questions.
The money spent on nuclear weapons funds about 7,000 jobs. Equivalent spending in the housing sector could fund over 60,000 jobs - and make something that we actually want and need at the same time. Money spent on nuclear weapons is a dead end, and it's time the government faced up to that.
That's why we are joining the TUC's 'A Future That Works' demonstration on Saturday. We say 'No' to cuts to our services. And 'Yes' to the benefits of the welfare state that have raised people up over decades to the possibility of genuine equality of opportunity - and to the fulfilment of everyone's aspirations and abilities, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth. But we say there is a good cut - to cut Trident, to stop spending on weapons of mass destruction and to invest in meeting the real needs of our people.
We marched with the trade unions last year, on a demonstration of half a million people. We have many trade union affiliates and they are increasing as their members realise the common sense of what we say. Polls show a majority of people are with us; they know the threats we face cannot be dealt with by nuclear weapons, so why waste money on them? Even senior military figures have described them as "completely useless". Some people say we need them for our status, to boost our standing in the world. But wouldn't eradicating child poverty, or having a world class education system, free at all levels, be more impressive to the overwhelming majority of states? Who really thinks better of Britain because we have nuclear weapons?
Maybe some people will say we are wasting our time, that demonstrating won't make a difference. But in our 55 year history we think we have shown that to be wrong. The pressure of public opinion and mass mobilisation really does have an impact, and if you read government documents and political diaries you can see that to be true. Each generation of CND has played a part in that. In the early 1960s, nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere were banned, largely as a result of mass protests - including the now legendary Aldermaston marches in Britain. In the 1970s, mass mobilisation forced the US government to abandon the neutron bomb - which was designed to kill people while leaving property intact. President Nixon was forced to pull back from using nuclear weapons on Vietnam. There are so many examples and they are not limited to nuclear weapons - women's suffrage, civil rights, the list is endless of what can happen when people speak out for - and march for - what they know to be right. We know it is right to stand with the ordinary people of Britain in their fight against the unnecessary economic onslaught we are currently facing. And we know it is right - economically, strategically, and morally - to take our anti-nuclear argument on the demonstration.
Join us on Saturday: Cut Trident, not jobs, health and education. Time to make one good cut.