There could come a time when the various tin-pot nations in an area of strategic interest to the UK make it awkward to overfly, let alone land and 'project power'.
I'm not disputing that, but given a constricted budget, I think the idea that these carriers will give us more ability to project power compared to other ways of using our finite resources, is a complete fallacy. All in for the carriers and JSF, we're looking at upwards of 15 billion...at least; and for what? 6 jets on the worlds biggest, defenceless floating target. That's a lot of F35As or Typhoons, and even more tanks and helicopters. In my mind, having all those things in usable numbers, presents a far more formidable fighting force than one that's sacrificed, and plans to sacrifice even more, capabilty to build two empty behemoths.
would provide much more promotion projection capability"
Well if we aren't angling for a promotion, what is our job description??