As you know, Greenpeace has been campaigning to get the governments upgrade of Britian's nuclear weapons in the Strategic Defence Review. This would allow MP's to debate the issue of Trident in Parliament. This is something the government doesn't want as many backbenchers question the validity of spending so much money on shiny new nukes, when we have difficulties paying for public services, such as the police force (not that I'm a great fan of the police, but they serve a far more useful civic duty then a lump of radioactive metal at the bottom of the sea!).
Trident, britians nuclear deterent, consists of nuclear submarines that hide in the worlds oceans waiting for an order to strike. Trident is a contencious issue for Portsmouth as nuclear submarines ocassionally dock at the military port. It's true that the military brings jobs to the area and so people would be relectant to critise what appears to be their income stream. However, the top brass in the UK military don't want Trident[1][2]. It's an expensive piece of kit that doesn't help British troops fighting in far off lands. The replacement cost of Trident is expected to cost £97 billion pounds, with a large fraction of the money going to American contractors. This leaves less money for the British military and is bad news for Portsmouth (from a rightwing perspective). With a reduction in funding the British Navy can no longer afford to run as many aircraft carriers as it wishes, this, will effect more jobs in Portsmouth then spending less on Trident.
However you look at it, not only does Trident go against our commitment for nuclear disarment, but it'll result in fewer jobs being created in Portsmouth (or possibly job losses?); bear this in mind next time you're down the pub!
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