TRIDENT – No Need For Like o Like Replacement – So says the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander, Liberal Democrat) stating that there are 'credible and compelling alternatives', and will thus save the country billions of pounds at a time of national austerity.     The Chief Secretary is now in charge of the Cabinet Office led Trident Alternatives Review, said: "Given all the financial pressures across the whole of the public sector, all the things the government has to do and wants to pay for, and all the pressures in different areas, I just think the idea that somehow, out of thin air, we can carve a multibillion pocket to pay for this, that is not financially realistic."

The Chief Secretary went on to say “MPs from all parties and senior officers in the military should accept there are "credible and compelling alternatives" to continuous at-sea deterrence, stating that the Treasury did not have "a magic pot of money" to pay for a new generation of Successor submarines”.   The Chief Secretary then went on to say “that the world had changed, and so had the defence assumptions that underpinned the position since the cold war”   He described as a "non-starter" the idea that the Treasury could find new cash to help the Ministry of Defence pay for new submarines, which is the privately held assumption of some Conservative MPs and officials at the MoD.    He went on to say “We are in a position where the costs of the Successor have to be paid for from within the MoD budget.    He also stated that as a Government, “we have been very clear about that. Certainly myself and the chancellor.    "That very financial imperative is one of the reasons why I think this review is so important. We have already set out that it is going to take another three years to deal with the deficit. That means budgets across the board naturally have to be squeezed, including defence."

We are fortunate that the Trident Alternatives Review is in such objective hands.