Fod,
Perhaps you should make more FOI requests about the RAF, it would make you a more informed commentator.
The boys and girls of the RAF have very different jobs to their RN brothers and sisters. Are you suggesting that operating from home base makes their contribution any less valued? SAR, QRA, the Airbridge to operations and constant preparation to maintain the readiness for any unseen operation all shape the size of our force. Your suggestion that less (no) value should be attributed to tasks other than those physically deployed on today of all days is in very bad taste.
Each Service operates differently, suggesting that the RN are more cost effective because they have to be at sea to have an effect is so simplistic, I trust that if you ever make public comment you are more sophisticated than that, but judging by some of the jingoistic comment we have been subjected to in the press I am beginning to think not.
I thought long and hard about replying to your repeated questions in the small hours; today should be a day when we remember all of our service men and women past and present for what they have done and what they continue to do every day, whatever the colour of their cloth.