FRANKIE Boyle recently shared a meme on social media suggesting that if we did not renew Trident, we could afford to send the whole country into lockdown with proper furlough pay and give us a chance to eradicate Covid.

On the face of it, it seemed to be a facetious suggestion. But then I thought, what is our defence budget for, if not for stopping our population from being killed? Does it matter who or what is doing the killing?

Covid 19 may not be a terrorist, or a country threatening our national security in the accepted sense, but, in the last few months, Covid has killed more people in our country, (last count 42,072) than any terrorist organisation could dream of. Globally it has killed more than a million people, in eight months. That’s just the official figures. No one knows how many people have died from Covid. No one knows the long-term implications of this new virus. Every day it is killing people while our government ums and ahs about which strategy is best.

Best for what? The health of the nation? The economy? Politics? I am not a stupid person, but the latest rules on social distancing, pubs, shops, curfews, face coverings etc are illogical and not joined up in any way that makes sense. More than six people can’t go feed the ducks, but up to 30 can shoot them…The government are sending confused, mixed messages and I do have sympathy for those who are fed up, scared and distrustful of anything this particular set of clowns say.

Why not use our, and I mean ‘our’, defence budget to fight Covid? Covid is more of a threat to our communities than anything else and needs proper resources to tackle the cause, and the spread. It is a pernicious virus that we need to face up to and deal with as a matter of urgency.

If a terrorist organisation had killed more than 42,000 people in our country, we would, quite literally be up in arms about it, screaming for our government to do its job and keep us safe. Instead we have mealy-mouthed government spokespeople, including our joke of a prime minster, ignoring medical experts and touting their own interests and those of their own party over and above the lives of the people they are supposed to be there to represent.

The whole thing is a travesty of honest government.

Many people toe the ‘party line’ saying ‘it only kills the elderly, or those with serious co-morbidities’ as though that is ok? The same argument is used for culling deer or fox hunting ‘only the ill or old get caught, the young healthy ones get away’ Well, maybe in a civilised society those old and ill people have as much right to live as anyone else. They are cherished members of families and communities. To dismiss their deaths in such a chilling way smacks of eugenics and that has no place on our so-called civilisation… does it?

Divert as much of our defence budget that is needed to rid us of this scourge and stop the weasel words and dishonest nonsense that we are being fed by those who should, indeed do, know better.

It is a matter of life and death.