I can't believe anyone would churn-out any argument in support of Rafale - that's the kind of rubbish I read on the plane-spotter sites! Dear God it would be obsolete before it entered service... mind you, that would be almost like standard practise for MoD procurement.
There are many options which could be chosen. The one which seems pretty obvious to me is to abandon the whole sorry JSF saga and use suitably converted Typhoons, given that we're supposedly going to end-up with more Typhoons than we need. We've discussed the subject on other threads and as we all know, the idea is perfectly practical.
The other very clear option (which the Government evidently accepts occasionally when they really have to) is to adjust our committments to suit our abilities. Clearly, getting out of Afghanistan would solve all the problems at a stroke. I'm absolutely astonished that both the Government and media seem to refer to Afghanistan as if our presence is an inevitability, whereas we are there purely by choice, and for no obvious reason. Patently, our presence has absolutely nothing to do with the defence of the United Kingdom and - call me old fashioned - I rather thought that was what our armed forces were for, not embarking on pointless overseas crusades. One would imagine that in a post-Bush era, our beloved Government might be able to think straight for a while, and accept that trying to save the world is a task which we can ill afford and one which the US should handle in isolation, if Obama is keen enough. Time we concerned ourselves with our country and our people, if we can't afford to do anything more.
If muppets like Sir Glenn had some backbone, they might manage to actually question the wisdom of the Government's actions, rather than engage in endless inter-service scraps to try and fight for the financial crumbs that the Treasury dishes-out.