What makes you think Ward et al had any effect on this decision? The Prime Minister announced the fact that the F35B equipped carriers would not be able to cross deck with the US and France as if it was a scandal which had only just been uncovered. Of course, the F35B carrier could cross deck with the USMC, Italy and Spain, but that is not the point. The point is to facilitate increased Anglo-French naval integration. The talks are going on right now, and Dr Fox is trying lamely to justify the concept, which of course makes no sense if you view a warship as an expression of the military will of a sovereign state. French Navy Rafales on Queen Elizabeth will be no use if we ever have to fight for the Falklands again will they? This really has very little to do with the relative merits of STOVL vs. CATOBAR, or a fleet carrier vs a strike carrier, it is all about defence integration and the continuing erosion of national sovereignty. The fact that Cameron operates under the banner of euroscepticism means the square root of sod all. The project marches on, and this is simply one aspect of it.

Its more the US and France not being able to cross deck to the RN that is the issue, not us to them.

Why would we need to fight for the Falklands again using a carrier? It is very adequately defended now, there is no chance of a repeat of 82. I believe in carriers, but I think using the spectre of a Falklands II is a red herring.

One meme which does seem to have gained surprising traction, serving of course to denigrate the Royal Navy, is the myth of “aircraft carriers without aircraft”. If Queen Elizabeth had been built as planned, in 2016 she would have been at sea with Harriers, pending the arrival of the F35Bs. The only way she would have been an aircraft carrier without aircraft is if the government stupidly decided to scrap the Harrier force, which is what they did. They have effectively traduced the carrier programme to deflect attention from the criminal folly of deleting the Harrier force early, and they seem to have got away with it.

Whose been reading their Dawkins! – Good man! To be fair the harriers are a) almost knackered b) radar less and mainly a short range attack platform. By the time QE is in service there would be very little Harrierage left to operate from them anyway, that rear fuselage fatigue issue has not gone away and was only going to worsen.

And I suppose the financial crisis was Labour’s doing? I’m sorry but the Tories would have propped up the banks in exactly the same way as Labour did. Blame Thatcher’s de-industrialisation policies of the 80’s as the reason why the UK fared far worse than most other European nations. We have a one dimensional economy centred around financial services, period!

I don’t disagree with you! calm down! It works both ways, both parties would have done everything that has been done over the last little while, we have a one dimensional economy and a one dimensional politics. both would have propped and both would have cut.

What Brown ordered was UOR’s, funded directly by the treasury.

Well not entirely. Many of the costs of the two conflicts came from MOD budgets, but mainly the way the MOD has been run and especially in the realms of procurement has been shocking. Those 22 Chinooks are not an UOR.

Besides UORs are no way to run a military. Underlines how badly run its been.

The type 45 could carry them, a study was done a while back but it would need Mk41 silos as the current SYLVER A50s aren’t long enough.

My turn to digress, didn’t the Bucc actually serve with all that in the end?

Nope, it was pretty much the aircraft that entered service when it left, same radar, a few tweaks here and there, sea eagle and pave spike wiring added but essentially it was no different.

Without getting too political all those people who said that HM Armed Forces would fare better under a conservative Government have got what they asked for!

I very much doubt we would have had such nonsensical strategic cuts had Labour remained in power.

All these savings will achieve is to permit the ConDem’s to balance the books such that they can offer huge tax cuts on the eve of the 2015 General Election, thus ensuring re-election.

You are kidding aren’t you. I’m not a tory by any measure or means but this cut was inevitable given what has been going on with the MODs budget for the last decade. The mass of orders that the Brown government placed last year were probably nothing more than half electioneering and half addiction to writing cheques.

Your first point is spot on. Your second begs the question has fixed wing naval aviation really existed for the past 5 years or so? The Harriers have been a joint force for nearly 10 years, and certainly for the past 5 the only difference was the uniform worn whilst serving in the very land locked Afghanistan.

There is also the issue of fatigue, the harrier was unlikely to last very long, especially with its congenital rear fuselage problem and in the demanding maritime environment the size of force that could be deployed was likely to diminish as the decade goes on. Can we actually say the RN has had a meanigful FJ force since the SHAR 2 withdrawl? Probably not.

its both carriers, with only one fitted with cats at a time.