John,
sober (then <g>)
Capability AND concern for old friends who stayed in after I left, as I am aware of the degree of commitment they maintained right up to the moment of shafting and the quite amazing amount of skill and experience built up in the fleet. That experience will not be regained in a very long time, in my view, retaining a core of top blokes will only mitigate the damage.
As I live on an island, like everyone else in the UK (including Cameron) I cannot see the sense in maintaining an ability to go to the middle east to fight people if it is at the cost of losing the ability to defend our own shoreline.
It's easy to imagine that current and past maritime aircrew are fighting for their patch, but the reality is that we're the folk who best know what is being discarded and we're appalled.
Dave