During the Day of Dance, organised by Yorkshire CND and held in the Victoria Hall, Saltaire, we held a GDAMS stall. This consisted of a table giving a series of options as to how people would spend £200 billion. This is the amount the Tories are proposing to spend on the replacement of the Trident Nuclear Submarine fleet. The options were grouped as Health, Climate Change, Education, Other, i.e. housing, Arts etc and Nuclear Weapons. People were invited to place £50 billion chips on the categories of their choice for financial support., to a total of £200 billion. During the day we engaged with many people but only 11 actually placed the chips. A record was kept of their choices. The results were (from a total spend of £2200 billion): Health 33.3%, Education 25%, Climate Change 17.3%, Other 17.3%, Nuclear Weapons 0%. From these results one thing is abundantly clear – no one wanted to spend any money on Nuclear Weapons. This might not be surprising given that the event was organised by Yorkshire CND. However, this was a Day of Dance and people had come to dance. They had not come to be involved in a CND demonstration. People from all walks of life had come and of very different ages, but they came to dance. The conclusion that people do not want money spent on weapons of mass destruction holds true. This is a message that we must get to the Government – we do not want to spend £200 billion on Trident when Health, Climate change, Education, Housing and the Arts are needing money. The message was clear: Abandon Trident. Spend money on much needed Social Causes. Read the report of the events by Dave Webb and Dr. Chris Butler. See the photo here!
