As you can see from the photo above, the empty shop which was taken over by the NO campaign for their HQ has an upstairs neighbour who is very definite that they are voting YES. I found it amusing anyway but I don’t suppose the NO people are too chuffed about it.

Last night we had the second televised debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling on TV. I watched it even although I’m getting fed up with the whole thing, it has been such a long campaign. I think Salmond won the debate easily but I have heard others say the opposite, there’s no accounting for people’s perceptions I suppose.

Anyway the Guardian’s Simon Jenkins has been writing about the referendum here. The article is specifically about Trident and what would happen to it if Scotland votes YES for independence.

I grew up just a stone’s throw away from Faslane and Coulport and at one point my father even worked at Coulport, but it’s always been a place I’ve hated, the very existence of nuclear weapons is abhorrent but when they are on your doorstep it sort of concentrates the mind. Apart from anything else the Gare Loch, where the Trident submarines are based is such a place of beauty, well it would be if it didn’t have miles and miles of razor wire circling it.

I’ve always wanted to sweep the weapons of mass destruction away and replace them with tourists and holidaymakers. It would be superior to anything in the Lake District, there could be the usual outdoor activities, such as sailing and scuba diving, no noisy speed boats or jet skis please!

I’ve actually had the unnerving experience of being on an enjoyable hill walk when I stumbled across an ominous looking air vent in the hillside. Because those hills have been hollowed out to allow for storage of nuclear weapons!

If I had my way those hollow hills could be used for all sorts of peaceful activities. Indoor climbing could take place and all sorts of games and entertainments. It would be a great place to shelter when the weather was bad, or the midges were too annoying.

Trident is the reason that President Obama changed his mind on the Scottish Independence referendum. Originally he said that it was up to the people of Scotland to decide. Then obviously his advisers got to him and explained that Scotland was the home of the Trident missiles, the only ones in Europe and as such apparently required for the ‘safety’ of the world!

I would just get rid of the lot of them but seemingly that would not be on the cards. It has been suggested that the base could be moved to Portsmouth. I wonder how the good people of Portsmouth would feel about that. Apparently there are about 260,000 people living around that area, including Devon, it’s presumably more than that, but still not close to the much larger amount of people living near the Scottish bases.

Simon Jenkins mentions: Where will the submarines and their warheads go if not in Scotland? The wild, unpopulated Scottish lochs are not easy to replicate in England or Wales. Honestly, I had to laugh when I read that. The loch which is home to Trident is a very short distance from Glasgow, one hour by road – at the most. As Glasgow is the biggest centre of population in Scotland at over 600,000 people in the city itself and there are plenty of medium sized towns in the area too it can hardly be described as a ‘wild and unpopulated area.’ Maybe Simon Jenkins should have a look at places before he writes articles about them, then he would have more of an idea of their ‘wildness’ or otherwise.