Why are we testing them? Surely it's enough to just say we have nuclear weapons, if you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you. But now we've gone and shown our hand, and it turns out we don't know what we're doing.
In a written statement to Parliament, Mr Shapps confirmed "an anomaly did occur" during the test on 30 January this year, but said Trident was "the most reliable weapons system in the world".
The paper said the Trident II D5 missile was intended to be fired 3,700 miles (5,954 km) to a sea target off the west coast of Africa but veered towards the US.
The cause of what went wrong remains top secret, the paper reported, but quoted a senior naval source as saying the missile suffered an in-flight malfunction after launching out of the water.
Dr Matthew Harries, director of proliferation and nuclear policy at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said it was impossible to say how significant the test failure was.
The Scottish National Party said spending on "weapons of mass destruction" came at the expense of tackling inequality and conventional military capabilities.
Martin Docherty-Hughes MP, the SNP's defence spokesperson in the Commons, said: "This is the second failed test in a row of weapons that are costing us tens of billions - an embarrassing and scandalous fact that should serve as a wake-up call to the UK government."
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