With regards to nukes, and the military as a whole. Requiring nukes and a fleet of ships requires years of planning, construction and operational costs. Training soldiers requires months. I have no idea why people want to push towards a situation where we might 'need' the former and be stuck waiting and essentially lose before any potential war begins. Rather than build up the latter in no time at all. Or IMO in that time you could build up a drone anti-personnel army instead to save lives, as a ground war is likely going to be against a 3rd world nation.
The navy and the nuke program is the most essential part of our military, and if you can't think of how and where these would be used then you really aren't thinking very hard. Japan and Germany used as examples against earlier, gee, why do you think they really don't have nukes? They both know it would be pushing their luck severely to start a nuclear program. Japan in a way 'can't' due to the laws imposed after their surrender and are in some ways a proxy state under the US umbrella. That can all change obviously as it is just a bit of text, but it would likely start an arms race. If Germany don't feel safe under NATO with more Russian threats, things can change. As for iraq, afghanistan and Argentina... c'mon and think please. These were not first class military's, we will not be in a 5-10 year war of attrition with them where we suffer heavy losses and financial burden where we can no longer afford to be 'nice'. Smart missiles cost huge amounts of money, if Argentina could drag a war out and start probing our home defences (assuming they magically gain the ability to project power) then nukes could be used. We don't have long range bombers or infinite smart missiles, our projection of power are basically carriers (which we don't have) and subs with nukes. You would hope the enemy at that point would have the sense to surrender before any launch but sense and war rarely go together.
Also people don't seem to think ahead at all, only think in the here and now. Yes the current EU are all left wing and nice, that is changing due to their policies having a detrimental effect on their populace. Who may turn from the 'nice' right wing option to the crazy right wing nutter section. I mean, its not like that would ever happen... right? In 5-10 years time the political landscape may be completely different and a nuclear deterrent is essential. As I say, things where massive amount of time and money are required should be the priority over other areas since you can't fix your incorrect assumption otherwise.
I feel like the details can get lost in a discussion of this as nuclear weapons and their use is so abhorrent no one wants to consider them. Which is the correct way of thinking, except not everyone thinks like that and to assume everyone is like you is not well reasoned. So if you think of it as a bazooka, handgun, shiv comparison. Your tribe is alone in a savage land, it takes a month to engineer the bazooka and get working. It takes a week to get the gun built and less than a day to get a shiv ready. Other tribes around you are random, their leaders and policies change frequently and some have one of each or all of them. You could be peaceful and fore sake all weapons and be at their mercy. Historically... not wise. You can go all out and get a bazooka, which you can wipe out another tribe with and they know it. If you do this you may be considered a threat by others with bazooka's and wiped out, so it is in your interests only to use it in self defence. Really though, you want a mix of all options and start on the longest to achieve straight away. Sometimes you'll come up against a tribe with shivs so can just use your guns. The ones with just guns know that you'll use your guns as a first option (since again other bazooka nations will worry about you) but if things start to look bad for them always have that bazooka option, so generally a good idea not to even bother. But if they do go ahead, and they do look like winning, you have your ace in the hole to decide your own fate. You could argue whether you are a people worth saving if you go through with it, but at least you have the option to decide.
Lots of ways of putting this, and maybe a simple one based on real history is best. If the battle of Britain started and Churchill had nukes... what would he have done? I'm not a Churchill fanatic or anything btw, he was human and therefore deeply flawed. That is a real world scenario however and I wonder what the anti-nuke debaters would believe could happen.
/wall of text rant
Fair to say that so far, Lynton's work hasn't had the hoped-for effect?
Nope, basically just handed all the initiative to his opposition. By trying to stand on the sidelines he is marginalized, not sure what they were expecting other than maybe hoping Ed produced gaffe after gaffe. Seems like a pretty pussified way of running a campaign.
UKIP are amazing. They'll pump extra money into killing foreigners, by taking money away from needy foreigners, thus killing two foreigners with 1 stone.
I mean, i'm aware that a lot of that money does go towards the like of India who, yes, have a space program. I just think UKIP are being severely disingenuous when they state that that's their actual motivation.
Do you actually believe this or repeating what you have heard? UKIP were anti-war while Labour/Tories were waxing their new planes. They were very proactive in stating they were against actions in syria, in libya, Iraq, even afghanistan seemingly etc.. Stated many times they think it causes more problems than it solves and that the defence budget is just that, for defence.
When they have talked about funding increases it is mostly centred around better equipment and post-service care.
