That statement posted by Tarnish might help to end all the ill-informed nonsense that has been thrown-up on this thread!
As Lord Drayson said, based on experience, it's clear that all the talk about having sovereignty over the F35's technology is just pre-signature hot air which happens in any programme, and it probably only ever came-up because of the potential export of the aircraft to other countries.
So let's calm-down and stop getting excited about being "ripped-off" by the evil Americans who (astonishingly) have supplied so much of our equipment, provided intelligence and technology when necessary, and have been a fundamental part of our strategic strike posture since the 1950's. It's fascinating how people will jump onto some newspaper-led "Lets hate the Yanks" bandwagon despite looking at history. Poor us, we've been "fobbed-off" with some really poor aircraft like the Phantom, AV-8B, E-3, Hercules and the C-17, the latter aircraft being so awful that we're trying to get hold of some more! Come on, get real!
The F35 saga is about cost, pure and simple. One suspects that the government regretted getting into the programme almost as soon as it began, and as I keep saying, you just have to sit back and marvel at how the government gradually digs itself out of its self-imposed farce, and the latest statement from BAe fits-in perfectly. How long then, before a new Typhoon study concludes that (guess what?!) the Typhoon could be cheaply reconfigured for naval operations, and so we don't need to even buy the F35 when we already have another batch of Typhoons to buy. Quelle surprise!
In the final analysis, the F35 isn't going to offer us anything much over the Typhoon, other than a Vtol capability which might or might not even survive to the production stage. Even if it does, its an ability that we haven't really needed since the 1990's. Ultimately, the only vaguely logical reason for purchasing the F35 is one of risk-spreading, so that we're not equipping virtually all of our front line with the same design. But this is 2006, and I think we've grown far beyond a stage where we have to do that any longer. I think it safe to assume that the Typhoon would fulfil all of our requirements, and you have to also assume that the government is thinking much the same thing - finally!