Skip to main content

Take action to end the scandal of military spending

It’s time to shift priorities.

Last month, another £570 million of public money for upgrading the UK's nuclear weapons was announced. Budget Day confirmed that when it comes to military spending, there's no such thing as austerity: it was set at a huge £38 billion for the coming year.

The government thinks we have £700 million to subsidise arms exports, £2.5 billion for new fighter jets, £6.2 billion for new aircraft carriers and £100 billion to renew nuclear weapons... so why are homelessness, hunger and inequality so rapidly on the rise?

It is a scandal that 1 in 4 children in the UK grow up in poverty. It is a disgrace that 20,000 disabled people will lose support for the basics in life when the Independent Living Fund closes. It is outrageous that thirteen times more people are relying on foodbanks to survive than did five years ago.

It is all the more scandalous when you realise that the UK's military spending is among the highest in the world.

It's time to shift priorities. This is the message we want to communicate on the Global Day of Action on Military Spending on Monday 14th April. However you share that message, you can contribute to a global wave of action to turn the tide on military spending.

  • Share these (http://demilitarize.org.uk/) powerful spending comparisons on Twitter and Facebook.

  • Order postcards and posters free of charge to share the message in your area. Reply to this email with your address and how many you would like.

  • Come along to an action on 14th April, or take a look at the guide for setting up a simple event in your town!

  • Visit www.demilitarize.org.uk for more resources, links to petitions and ideas for action!

  • Together we can show that it's time to shift priorities and redirect military spending to the things we really need.

    Thank you for your support.

    Anne-Marie O'Reilly
    Campaign Against Arms Trade

    P.S. Also...

    Labour Party member? CAAT is always working hard to influence political parties' policies for the better. There's an opportunity to help shape the Labour Party's global policy coming up. If you are active in your local constituency Labour Party, please contact ann@caat.org.uk to find out how you can help.

    Near London on Saturday 12th April? CAAT's got together with Stop the Arms Fair to run an exciting training day on skills for creative activism. Please reply to this email if you plan to come!

    Comments

    Popular posts from this blog

    Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain

    Tate Liverpool: Exhibition 28 February – 11 May 2014 Adult £8.80 (without donation £8) Concession £6.60 (without donation £6) Help Tate by including the voluntary donation to enable Gift Aid Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain , is a new take on how the changes in the meaning of words reflect the cultural shifts in our society. This dynamic exhibition takes its name and focus from the seminal 1976 Raymond Williams book on the vocabulary of culture and society. An academic and critic influenced by the New Left, Williams defined ‘Keywords’ as terms that repeatedly crop up in our discussion of culture and society. His book contains more than 130 short essays on words such as ‘violence’, ‘country’, ‘criticism’, ‘media’, ‘popular’ and ‘exploitation’ providing an account of the word’s current use, its origin and the range of meanings attached to it. Williams expressed the wish some other ‘form of presentation could be devised’ for his book, and this exhibition i

    'Not as dumb as he looks' - Muhammad Ali on Bertrand Russell

    In his autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story , Muhammad Ali recounts how Bertrand Russell got in contact with him, and their ensuing correspondence: *** For days I was talking to people from a whole new world. People who were not even interested in sports, especially prizefighting. One in particular I will never forget: a remarkable man, seventy years older than me but with a fresh outlook which seemed fairer than that of any white man I had ever met in America. My brother Rahaman had handed me the phone, saying, ‘Operator says a Mr. Bertrand Russell is calling Mr. Muhammad Ali.’ I took it and heard the crisp accent of an Englishman: ‘Is this Muhammad Ali?’ When I said it was, he asked if I had been quoted correctly. I acknowledged that I had been, but wondered out loud, ‘Why does everyone want to know what I think about Viet Nam? I’m no politician, no leader. I’m just an athlete.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a war more barbaric than others, and because a mystique is built up

    James Kirkup

    James Kirkup has died, aged 91. In 2004 he sent us a copy of No More Hiroshimas . He had originally collected together this volume of hia A-bomb poems in 1983, but it took twenty years before we published it 'as a real book'. James recounts 'My A-Bomb Biography' in his preface. Here are the opening lines of the title poem, No Mor e Hiroshimas . At the station exit, my bundle in hand, Early the winter afternoon's wet snow Falls thinly round me, out of a crudded sun. I had forgotten to remember where I was. Looking about, I see it might be anywhere - A station, a town like any other in Japan, Ramshackle, muddy, noisy, drab; a cheerfully Shallow impermanence: peeling concrete, litter, 'Atomic Lotion, for hair fall-out', a flimsy department store; Racks and towers of neon, flashy over tiled and tilted waves Of little roofs, shacks cascading lemons and persimmons, Oranges and dark-red apples, shanties awash with rainbows Of squid and octopus, shellfish, slabs o