Littleborough says nurses not nukes!

Date published: 16/04/2007

Shoppers in Littleborough made it clear recently that they think that the money which the government plans to spend on upgrading the Trident nuclear weapons system would be better spent on employing more nurses in the National Health Service.

Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group invited passers-by to put coins symbolising their taxes into either a jar representing spending on nuclear weapons or a jar representing spending on nurses. After two hours the "nurses’ jar was very full, but the "nukes’ jar had attracted no coins whatsoever. 

On behalf of the Peace Group, Philip Gilligan said: "Everyone had a free choice about where to put their coins, but it was clearly "no contest’. People are all too aware that their local health services are under threat and are horrified that the government, with the support of a minority of local MPs like Phil Woolas, is intent on spending tens of billions on weapons of mass destruction at the same time as it is threatening to close the Maternity Unit and to downgrade the Accident and Emergency Department in Rochdale. They want their taxes to be spent on saving and improving lives, not on the means to destroy them."

The Peace Group distributed leaflets on the corner of Hare Hill Road and Church Street in Littleborough.

They welcomed the fact that Paul Rowen MP and Jim Dobbin MP were amongst those who voted against the government’s plans to upgrade the Trident nuclear weapons system in March.