The Empire...Gone ???? Good God Carruthers. whatever next ?
However, I totally concur with dogfish. We don't need aircraft carriers, we have plenty of them in the shape of CVN's. and coupled with the CVN 21 programme, there will be plenty of them for many more years.
We are a tiny nation with a small Armed Force - Manchester United get more people to watch them every weekend than there are people in the Navy, the RAF and even the Army's meagre 110G is looking sad. (In fact.....even Chelsea get more people to watch their weekly diving competition than there are people in the RAF)
We have to admit it and stop trying to be some sort of world policeman and marching across foreign lands wealding our swords.
We should be concentrating more on defence of the homeland and in particular littoral manoeuvres.... scrap the CVF and buy 40 brand spanking new LCS's.