We are famous for our shipbuilding, our architecture, our rainy days, and our greenery as a consequence. We are apparently a great place to shop and socialise. Our writers, musicians, artists, actors and engineers are world renowned. Our football teams are notorious. Our universities have huge reputations. Our Commonwealth Games hosting was second to none. But surely our latest accolade will last long in memories into the future. The famous and beautiful city of Glasgow where even the buildings are so tough they just refuse to fall?? I’m sure the people in and around the Red Road flats won’t welcome the monumental hitch that left two of the six tower blocks still standing after tons of controlled explosives were set off on Sunday but as with much in life if you don’t laugh you cry.

The images and wise cracks flying around social media had me in stitches of laughter over the last 48 hours.

Glasgow Times:

The two remaining tower blocks shouting at the top of their imaginary voices, ‘Is that all you’ve got? Come ahead’. ‘Call that explosives? More like powder puff’. ‘Forget yer leaning tower of Pisa we’ve got the leaning towers of the Red Road’. And of course ‘Typical bloody council they canny even blow up a building right’. It all reminds me why most of us who live in Glasgow love our city so much. We have problems in abundance with poverty, inequality and poor housing but through adversity we see the best of the human spirit, loads of compassion and a right heavy dollop of humour. We are Glasgow, or Glesga to the Edinburgers…

Glasgow Times:

Bairns not bombs 

The issue of Trident was very much back in the news with Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Trident position apparently being kicked into touch by his trade union backers. I am passionately opposed to nuclear weapons on moral grounds. They are immoral weapons. They are illegal weapons. They are the most indiscriminate weapons ever invented. They kill everyone and everything. That is what makes them illegal in the eyes of international law.

That should be the starting point in this debate. Even if there was a good jobs argument I would reject it because the morality of the weapons comes first. I’m sure the workers who made gallows to hang people in the past were skilled but they lost those jobs when we abolished hanging. I’m sure their skills were put to better use. And that argument is 100 times more powerful in relation to Trident. I keep reading about the thousands of jobs reliant on Trident. Rubbish. The number of jobs directly reliant on Trident is 520. And of those 520 jobs only 343 are engineering and science jobs.

The truth is from a jobs perspective Trident is a complete disaster. If the same money was directed to socially useful engineering and science based jobs we could create thousands more. Trident prevents jobs being created. It is not only immoral, illegal and bad for the environment it also abuses public funds that could be better used to create thousands more well paid and socially useful jobs.

I am absolutely adamant that no political party that supports the maintenance of nuclear weapons will ever get my vote. It is a question of principle. How dare politicians pontificate about the need to cut elderly care and children’s services while voting to spend £100 billion on these obscene weapons? Bairns not bombs is my war cry and the trade unions should get behind it.

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Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here