GB Govt likes an overspend, look at Concorde.
Eurofighter Typhoon was another good one. A product of the Cold War era that entered service many years behind schedule.
Jobs at BAe seem to be the main reason these projects endured.
Think of the billions that could have been saved by buying military hardware from the USA from the outset.
We seemed to get stuck in the post war mentality that Britain led the World in jet aviation (we gave all our research info to the US for free after WWII). I'm sorry but the Boeing 707 changed all that after the Comet failed.
Oh, isn't the Nimrod a Comet clone?
QED.