The Trident warheads are taken down to AWE to be maintained regularly anyway, so I cant imagine thered be a problem with the starter charge festering.
The working life of the transport mechanism (the Vanguards) is finite so theyd need to be replaced just like your washing machine.
The countries that Sam lists have never had atomic weapons though, have they? What government would willing show the level of weakness to say were giving this up?
Whilst we may not need them now to hold off the communist hordes, things in the world seem to have a habit of changing.
And really theyre to protect us from the French
, of whom certain sections of government wanted to assist the Nazis in invading us in the 1940s, and one of whoms uboats did their best to ram HMS Vanguard last year -)