NAIVE TO STOP ARMS SALES

WITH respect Joan Westis is a little naive if she thinks that Germany saying it will stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia will do anything (Observer letter November 23).

Germany is in the consortium that builds the Typhoon so if we sell 48 Typhoons to them Germany will get a financial percentage for their coffers.

As for complaining that we should stop supporting the defence industry for fear of loosing jobs, again rather naive again on her part.

The arms industry employs 250,000 plus thousands more people in businesses in the area where these establishments are.

The revenue from arms helps to finance schools, hospitals and the infrastructure of the country.

As more countries now build up their own defence industries such as China and India, just to mention two, they will fill that gap if we stopped selling weapons.

Perhaps she wants to see countries who she may think are neutral but sell arms around the world, excluding France, Russia etc?

Check out Egypt, Poland, Brazil, South Africa, Switzerland, Austria. These countries sell billions of arms around the world.

If we scrapped the arms industry how or where would we employ these people?

Or is she one of those who says we will find alternative work for them but never come up with these jobs or will they come from jeopardy?

We would all love to see peace in the world but in the world I live in along with billions of other people sadly it’s never going to happen. A.P.Moxham Great Harwood