This one has been good for a Mess punch-up a long time - and it always produces the same amount of emotional twaddle on both sides. Anyone can see my background from my log-in but it seems to me, as one long retired but a substantial tax payer, that we're missing the point.
I don't suppose Col Collins is talking about losing capability - although a bit of refocus might not be a bad thing. What on earth is Eurofighter for? What he is principally talking about is command structure.
Aircraft don't win wars. They support people who win wars. Wars are won by a grunt standing on a piece of ground and saying "You can't have this, it's mine" - or even a ship occupying a stretch of strategic water. Nobody is downplaying the importance of aircraft in achieving that objective but why do we need yet another expensive cammand structure to achieve it? Let the people who require the support decide what it is and how it should be deployed. What bits of the RAF should go where is really detail.