THE current crisis in the NHS and in social care can only be alleviated if we spend as much as we can afford on them. And this we are certainly not doing because we are wasting billions on so called defence. Defence against whom or what? There is no evidence and has been none since 1945 that we are threatened with invasion by another state.

We have enemies in the Middle East who as a result of our insistence on political and military meddling in that area endeavour to perpetrate revenge atrocities but none of them are states even though Isis falsely claims to be one.

What needs to happen, but won't, is a complete recalibration of our foreign and defence policies and a steep reduction in our defence expenditure. We should scrap Trident if only on the grounds that we cannot afford to waste money on it; we should get out of Nato as it requires us to pledge 2% of our expenditure on it. We should stop any military meddling in the affairs of other countries, and close all British bases overseas

I voted Brexit not because I am in any way opposed to EU free movement, far from it, but because without getting out of the EU which is the civilian wing of NATO first, there is no possibility of leaving NATO. And that should be our number one priority. because NATO, always headed by a US general serves US priorities which involve us and other European countries in foreign wars as in Afghanistan and Libya, which waste even more of our financial resources.

I have been campaigning for peace since the 1950s and what appals me is how little has changed: the same old groundless fears of Russia. The same old arguments for keeping nuclear weapons, the same talk about multilateral disarmament which never even begins to happen. And the same cutting of health expenditure to fund armaments. I remember Harold Wilson, in the days when he was an honourable man, resigning when dental charges and prescription charges were introduced. And why were they introduced? - to fund an increase in arms expenditure!

Malcolm Pittock

Bolton