it is utter fantasy to believe that the UK is going to be able to afford to resurrect this capability in any shape or form.
With all due respect, this notion that mpa is gone forever and ever is total bollaeux...we're 3 years out of the worst recession we've experienced since the end of WW1, of course were not immediately going to be able to replace nimrod, but don't let that pessimism dominate your view for the rest of history gees!!
Biggus, you're getting confused between debt and deficit, my friend. The coalition's goal was to have eliminated the deficit and halved the national debt by 2015, which it has now pushed back to 17, after which budgets start to rise in line with economic growth...the single biggest reason the MoD was only guarenteed a 1% increase in its budget after 2015 was because no sane government would guarentee a bigger increases without knowing what the long term growth rate is going to be.
And by the looks of things, defence may well escape another hit, if the economy is growing at 2.5% a year after 2016, what reason is there to believe that all budgets wouldn't increase by 2% a year...we would still be paying down the debt, but departments would be seeing real increasing budgets!
The mood on the last few posts makes me want to hang myself, Jesus!