Sounds good Jacko,
and I almost agree with the idea of painting 9 of them red - provided the rest of the RAF has rather more than 6 Sqns.
It's a bit of an inversion of commonsense, that selling our best fighters (arguably - the Harrier/SHAR/F3/Typhoon punchup will be in the ante room at 1900) to Johny Foreigner is somehow good for Britain... that'll be one of those capability holidays, the 'capability' in question being sanity, I imagine. Looks like 'good for BAe' rather than good for Britain or the RAF, and it's a sad day when we need to take a back seat to ensure we get the table crumbs later on.
I do, as a pedantic type, have to take exception to
There is no air threat to the UK and the risk in manageable.
WHEN there is a perceived air risk to the UK, and it is actually realised, then it will be far too late to re-equip and train, you have to HAVE an effective air defence BEFORE you know there is a threat.
Also, you cannot manage a risk you cannot quantify or identify, so I'd love to know where you get 'manageable' from.
Mind you, at least we have some semblance of an air defence system, which is more than can be said of maritime defence these days.
I still don't think having 6 fast jet sqns and 1 slow jet display sqn is particularly healthy....it looks like the early 30's all over again.
Dave