Engines, with respect, as one who has said on several occasions that Admirals Lewin, Leach and Fieldhouse were in favour of the raid and more so than MRAF Beetham who was very sanguine about the chances of success, let me be clear that does not equate to me suggesting that the RN requested the raid.
MRAF Beetham presented the Vulcan raid as an option, with a sober analysis of the difficulties of success. The three Admirals mentioned offered the view that despite this, attacking Stanley airfield was worth doing because of their perceptions of the possible effects on the Argentines, which were not guaranteed. Admiral Woodward came into the picture at this point, agreeing with the assessment that the wider possible effect of Blackbuck 1 made it worth doing, over-riding the objections of some of his aviators who failed to see the wider possibilities that might emanate from the attack.
There is much in the history presented which is either confusing, open to debate, or just plain wrong. For instance, there is evidence from Argentine sources which contradicts the notion that Black Buck 2's bombs did not go off. There is evidence from Argentine sources (not Middlebrook, as I mis-remembered earlier, but Salvador Mafe Huertas) that Grupo 8's Mirages had their tasking rebalanced or altered. There is a claim that 'the secretary of state' (which one?) ruled out bombing the mainland, but given that Tony Benn and Tam Dayell can be found (via Hansard) warning of the gravest consequences of such an attack as late as 20th May - i.e. the day before Op SUTTON, it clearly hadn't been ruled out as categorically as some accounts suggest. We also have the problem that much of the running here has been made by Sharkey Ward and Roland White's accounts, both of which have.... shall we say 'issues'? I'd suggest that until we have full visibility of the documents - not long now - being able to interpret these events with something approaching certainty, or at least confidence, is difficult. The end result is that we end up attempting to interpret unclassified sources, or sources which have crept into the public domain, influenced by partial accounts and/or service allegience, or accounts which say, or repeat certain things (the clear rejection of an attack on the mainland) with confidence, when the evidence from the time, upon examination, suggests something a little different.