THE REFURBISHED WARRIOR TANKS OF THIS WARRIOR NATION

I learn that the British Government has just ordered the refurbishment of the army’s ‘Warrior’ tanks, and that at a cost of one billion pounds sterling. That is £1,000,000,000 or £10 to the power of 9. In its statement, the government further had the nerve to make this enormous expenditure, this incredible extravagance, sound as if they were saving the country – they always call it “the taxpayer” - a huge amount of money, by their refurbishing the old tanks, rather than to replace them with new. I formally object. I want that money to be spent, not on war and on the now so disastrously fashionable national aggression, but on the nation’s welfare; on the nation’s health; on the nation’s education; on the nation’s young; on the nation’s old; on the nation’s poor; on the nation’s disabled in mind or body, on infrastructure, on transport, water, power... OH, Hear me! Hear me! Hear me!