The TUC's Frances O'Grady on the gaping hole at the heart of Britain's finances
Tonight sees the final leaders’ debate of election 2010, and with the polls still close and Gordon Brown facing up to the public after his 'bigot' gaffe, it should be a lively one.
The subject of the debate is the real issue of the day – the economy and how we are going to deal with our massive national deficit.
Will we get an acknowledgement of the sheer scale of the economic challenge facing whichever party takes charge after the election?
Will we finally get some real detail from the different parties about how they plan to tackle the gaping hole in Britain's finances?
Politicians being politicians, that is of course very unlikely – so we thought we would share with you the vision of Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, on this very subject.
For her it's a no-brainer. Yes she’d cut the deficit, but she would also protect vital services like care for the elderly and child support. Plus she would invest funds in a new strategic investment bank to fund new green jobs. And how would she manage this? Well, a good start would be by making an obvious cut - cutting out plans to spend £97 billion on replacing that old Cold War weapon, Trident.
And she's not alone. On the Channel 4 website their 'Chop or Not?' game shows that when faced with the real choices, chopping Trident is currently the public's most popular option!
Have a go for yourself at http://chopornot.channel4.com/.
