THE future security of Britain will depend on big decisions made in the next five years.

Our politicians want to spend many billions of pounds to keep Britain’s ability to wage nuclear war.

In theory, Britain’s Trident missiles can destroy Tokyo, Beijing, Tehran or Washington.

But why should any other nation state in the world be so concerned about Britain to push us that far? It is a fantasy.

Recently rekindled memories of the Battle of Britain and our Imperial past unfortunately feed a misguided idea of Britain’s importance in the world today.

In reality the greatest threat to our pensions, public services and quality of life comes from the financial markets, which are supposedly invincible.

We have allowed rich people running financial services to distort the British economy so much they can now dictate whether Darlington has a public library or not, what services we can have for older people, and how many youth workers we can employ.

Our nuclear option is to nationalise the banks.

The gentler option is to tax the financial services and their bosses until the pips squeak.

Paul Harman, Darlington.