It is pretty poor argument to say that Libya was done from home / Italy so we don't need carriers. Net is if a plane is carrier capable you get to choose where to fly it from. If it is land based you don't. If we had a carrier with the right aircraft it would have been involved in Libya. (Can't say FACT, but seems very obvious to me) Peter, the trouble with this is, it's not about "lets fly a plane off a carrier because it is more flexible to do so", it's far more important to have capability in the airframe and in this I'm afraid the GR4 wins hands down. Yes, the carriers are very flexible, but the constraints placed upon the ac have serious implications. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have them, we should, but a choice had to be made and the more capable and numerous GR4 was chosen.
JAJ - The argument being made here is NOT GR9 vs GR4, it is that now we're buying a proper carrier, all future FJ should be carrier-capable (as for that matter should all air stores & munitions). That requirement should be pretty much number 1 on the URD/SRD. Constraints placed on aircraft are not as heavy as they used to be and certainly nowhere near that imposed by STOVL ops.