Concur with Biggus. Once you decided not to use it, spending money on storage is an additional expense for nil return. We were never going to get top $ for Harrier as the number of potential buyers were limited, so a competitive auction unlikely. All the more so as I understand that there was significant US technology incorporated which they would have had issues with the UK transferring to other foreign buyers.
So we were not in a strong selling position as the US was probably the only viable customer.
If you turn the story around, so that we had decided the US were getting too much of a good deal, but we couldn't sell elsewhere because of technology transfer issues, then the Mail's story in two year's time would have gone along the lines of:
'£millions spent on preserving Harriers to stand idle for the last two years! We're paying to keep these airframes in good condition despite the fact they will never be used again. A golden opportunity to sell them to the US was missed two years ago, and relieve us of the burden and at the same time receive a cash boost. An MoD spokesman said the price offered by the American's 'did not reflect a fair value for the airframes given upgrade expenditure which had been invested in them'. And so we spend more taxpayers' money on keeping these planes in controlled conditions until we eventually sell them for scrap and get peanuts in return!'
Any jobs going for a defence correspondent at the DM?