The Labour government's so-called "consultation" on Trident is a farce. Tony Blair, our power-crazy Prime Minister, made up his mind a long time ago to replace Trident with a fleet of more powerful weapons of mass destruction to be based on the Clyde. The decision is being rushed through while he is still in office as part of his "legacy", although there is no reason whatsoever in having made the decision now.

Former pro-nuclear people such as Roy Hattersley and Denis Healey have recognised that the situation has now changed, and that the creation of a new generation of weapons of mass destruction will do nothing to stop the real threat posed today from terrorist attack. I suppose if we look at Blair's decision it is not so astonishing. He supported CND when it was fashionable to help his career and then dumped it when it was no longer useful to him.

There is also the moral question. Tony Blair is alleged to be a Christian, a Christian Socialist to boot. All the main churches strongly oppose the renewal of Trident. But one does not need to be a Christian to recognise the importance of the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." So how can a so-called "defence" policy based on the potential slaughter of millions of innocent people and the wiping out of civilisation ever be justified?

The SNP has pledged to get rid of all nuclear weapons from Scottish soil as soon as it comes to power. Opinion polls over a number of years have shown consistently that the vast majority of Scots agree with this - the latest shows that four out of five do so.

One of the lies put around for us having nuclear weapons is that we need them to "secure a seat at the top table". The truth is that the five permanent members of the Security Council were chosen before anyone had nuclear weapons, not even the US.

The cost of building and running a new "Son of Trident" nuclear system is anyone's guess but up to £79bn over its lifetime has been estimated.

The absurdity of this is reflected in the recent closing of eight accident and emergency units in Scotland to save money, with many more under threat.

Many of our top scientists will be locked into creating this barbarous new missile system when there are a thousand better projects in which they could be employed, combating global warming for example, or harnessing the wave power of the Pentland Firth. An SNP victory on May 3 would be a major step in ending Blair's insane plans.

John S Jappy, Moy Bridge, Muir of Ord

WEDNESDAY'S Westminster vote to spend billions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction took me right back to the 1980s: English Tory MPs forcing the obscenity of nuclear weapons on to a Scottish public that would rather see the money spent on social programmes. It's ironic that David Cameron needed the votes of hundreds of Labour MPs (including many one-time supporters of CND) to get this flagship Tory policy through parliament. A majority of Labour's quisling MPs allied themselves with the Tories on this issue: it's time for the Scottish electorate to do to Labour what it previously did to the Tories, and May would be a good starting-point.

David Stevenson, 47 Cairns Road, Cambuslang

GOOD to see that Labour MSP Charlie Gordon has not lost his local-authority mentality. On the day that Labour and the Tories voted to spend billions on upgrading weapons of mass destruction based on the Clyde, good old Charlie was worrying about his coffee and tea expenses. You couldn't make it up.

Ian Mackay, 30 Burncrooks Avenue, Bearsden