Cancelling Typhoon bar Tranche 3 aircraft could be a little troublesome given the contract penalties. CAS is quoted in either JDW or the Torygraph (I think the former) as saying that Typhoon Tranche 3 'isn't on anybody's radar' at the moment, so it might be that the partner nations are going to quietly agree to bin that Tranche (although I had the impression that the Germans want/need their Tranche 3 aircraft to meet their force structure planning assumptions?).
As Jacko pointed out on another thread, the JSF participation deal that the UK has guarantees the right to contribute to production, and doesn't tie the UK to buying 150. There are no contractual penalties for not taking the aspired to figure (and there are now some commentators who query whether or not the JSF is going to be as useful for the UK's purposes as the Typhoon). I'd not be at all surprised to see the JSF buy reduced to about 75 (sufficient to put 30 aboard a smaller CVF with only one CVF (Lite) ready for ops at any one time).
Of course, OA is right - if the Dear Leader is serious about doing Expeditionary Warfare, both Typhoon and CVF are required. Just to complicate matters, there are rumours that the F/A-22 programme might be cut back to under 200 - in which case, the ability to provide an AD capable aircraft in coalition operations might not be a bad thing...
OA is spot on - if Blair, Brown and the poodle at MoD aren't prepared to fund defence then they need to stop @rsing about pretending that the UK can do everything while simulataneously going about cutting left, right, centre, up, down and sideways...