C2
Thanks to those who responded to my late-night, and possibly poorly-worded posts.
Sunk at Narvik et al -
I think we're wildly agreeing here. The solution is to have more aircraft. However, in the meantime, don't forget that aircraft can and do move between theatres just as ships do. And I'm talking about the Joint Commander, not the Joint Force Commander, making the call in those cases - so I'm not proposing anything, merely describing how our current system works. I would also expect expect carrier-based air (regardless of which Service flies it) to spend a lot of its time embarked. However, the argument that you can't ever leave a carrier "without its weapons", even if they're needed elsewhere only undermines the argument for having carriers; that's probably why SRO(C) pushes the 'step-ashore' capability.
And I am in favour of carriers - but I want to make sure UK defence gets the most out of them and the aircraft that fly from them - and as I don't think we're buying enough hulls or enough jets, I am just asking people to be flexible in how we use them. The jets are there to project air power, not to make the carrier work (Widger!). Actually I believe the carriers are (largely) there to project air power, but that's a fairly philospohical point.
Orca -
Before you start making bald statements about the RN not being able to command air assets, I'd take a look at the doctrine book. Neither the RAF nor the RN should be commanding force elements on operations - Joint Force Component Commanders should. Don't confuse these with services, and if the day were to come when our focus was a major maritime action with minimal air threat, then I would be the first one suggesting that the carrier air should be OPCON the MCC.