Letter of the day

Of course the UN General Assembly would like to ban all nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, the chances of this happening are zero, and with countries like North Korea and Iran very near to obtaining inter-continental ballistic missile capacity, for the UK to abandon Trident would be rash indeed.

These weapons have kept the UK safe from nuclear threat for decades.

To state our prime ministers present, past and future are waiting to press the button is pathetic.

It is the present government and main opposition’s policy to maintain the deterrent – note the word ‘deterrent’.

As for images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being ‘seared on my brain’, read your history.

Japan had murdered its way across China since the early 1930s, attacked the USA and the UK without any declaration of war, slaughtered and enslaved countless thousands of East Asians and treated many PoWs as slave labour.

If the bombs had not been dropped to end the war and force Japan’s surrender, a countless number of additional PoWs would have died in bestial conditions.

The alternative would have been four seaborne invasions of the home Islands comprising Japan, invasions that would have made D-Day look like a holiday.

Lord knows how many British, American and Australian troops would have died to rid the world of what was a vile militarist and fascist regime.

Thank the armed services for preserving our safety and democracy so the people of this country can express their opinions freely, however ill-informed.

Derek Woolven

Tangier Road, Baffins