Interesting - two points
1. "Secondly, finding sufficient manpower was deemed a major problem – it was unclear where the RN would find the nearly 1000 extra people from to crew the ship, and it was suggested that at least three frigates would need to be paid off to make this happen." - somethings never change
2. Absolutely no mention of the political angle - a Labour Govt., intent on cutting defence costs and giving up the East of Suez role and US carriers? I really don't think that was ever on. But then the military at the time seem to have been oblivious to the whole political world