By 2020, the cost of the Afghanistan war will be at least £40bn, enough to pay 5,000 nurses for their whole career or fund free tuition for all college students for 10 years.

Can it be seriously argued that Britain's influence in the world relies on its possession of a nuclear-armed submarine permanently on patrol somewhere in the Atlantic?

"Some call these myths," says actor Ricky Tomlinson. "I call them lies. We are being told lies about who caused this crisis and lied to about the best way out of it."

The UK's military expenditure is the highest in the EU at 43.3bn a year, showing how bogus the argument is that there is no money in the kitty to pay for welfare.

The contrast between cuts threatening to destroy the NHS as a public service and the never ending costs of Britain's war machine needs to be highlighted continually.

Hermann Göring's observation, "Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat", is now the essential principle of the political class on both sides of the Atlantic.

Britain's defence minister says cut welfare spending on the poorest in society to pay for new tanks, aircraft carriers and Trident nuclear submarines.

The military budget could be slashed by 50% and nobody would know the difference: the public in the US barely knows there are wars going on.

I will be presenting a budget today which will not cut welfare spending and will support the 18 million poorest and most vulnerable people in this country. How can I do this?

The war in Afghanistan will cost £20 billion over the next four years -- exactly the amount that the government is trying to cut from the National Health Service through 'savings'.

While welfare services for the poorest and most vulnerable in society face brutal cuts, there is never a shortage of money to finance our government's addiction to war.

The government spends £25 billion a year on its war machine and is committed to spending hundres of billions more on buying new military hardware. At what cost to the disabled?

Governments are cutting spending dramatically on education, health care, housing and other vital social services, without corresponding cuts in military budgets.

New-born babies will die because of the £20bn NHS cuts. Afghan civilians and British soldiers will die because of £20bn spent on the Afghanistan war. Solution: cut the war, stop the cuts.

The cost of just one Storm Shadow missile used by the RAF to bomb Libya -- at £1 million each -- would be enough to take 222 people in Britain out of poverty for a year.

Which do you think is the best investment? asks Brian Eno. A war machine which incurs contempt and hatred everywhere for Britain? Or funding for hospitals, nurses, schools and child-care?