What a pain it must be to be in charge of the nation's finances in these challenging economic times. It's easy to imagine the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, working feverishly into the night in a frantic attempt to make the sums at least appear to add up as he prepares for tomorrow's crucial pre-budget report. But what to cut when everything is a 'tough choice' - education, the NHS, or the unthinkable alternative - raising taxes?
Feeling sorry for the Chancellor's predicament, we decided to help him out with a timely and obvious reminder of one large budget cut which he could make without further damaging the economy - and one which which would be popular not only in this country but across the wider world - cutting plans to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system.
So last night at approximately 3am, we added to the mounting calls to re-evaluate Trident replacement by sending a 100 foot high message to Mr Darling, unmissably projected onto Big Ben. The projection covered most of the clock tower and read 'Darling….Cut the crap' with an image of a Trident missile with its £97 billion life-time price tag.
For too long now this Cold War doomsday machine has been an untouchable part of Britain's 'defences', even though it is purely offensive in nature and, being largely manufactured and maintained by the US, is vastly expensive and can never be used independently. But at a time when the hounds of financial doom are hammering at the door, and more and more ex-military, and foreign and defence specialists in the UK and abroad are saying that Trident has no military use and that to deliver real security for the world we need to be eliminating nuclear weapons, the era of Trident is now surely ending.
As Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauven commented this morning, "When you hear politicians talking about 'tough choices', remember that every billion they cut from public services and every billion that isn't spent on green jobs is just one per cent of the money they're wasting on Trident replacement.
"If tough choices have to be made then it's the relics of the Cold War that should go in the bin first."
Read In the Firing Line, our report into the true costs of Trident replacement »
