WEBF, I'm beginning to think you really don't understand this. What I said (and please look back through it) was, if QE is alone with its few escort ships and maybe a Sub, then it will have an AD screen provided by T45, supplemented with F-35. To provide 24/7 DCA cover organically with F-35 takes more aircraft than you and many others appreciate. Way, way more. The USN can do it because they have 70+ ac on board - we never will have anywhere near that number. So, if the Captain wants 24/7 F-35 overhead in the AOR covering his/her own carrier, there will be no strike going on. That's fine if you're transiting in and out of the Theatre, but if you're there with a job to do, it ain't fine. This is where the analysis implies we have to be part of a larger coalition warfighting fleet (US, UK or Fr led) where AD is provided by a combination of a few QE's F-35 but also by CVN, CdG and, because we're likely to be in range of land based AD air assets, various F-type jets.
The capability that's been bought is for Carrier Enabled Power Projection. The Carrier gets the jets, rotary and Marines to the fight and sustains them, accepting that in today's age, with the relatively few F-35 bought, you cannot do all of this alone in a near peer environment. The weapons are there to project power where it matters, to meet the JTFC's aims and objectives. If you spend all your organic assets flying hours being parochial - and not accepting other fighter cover AD - the question 'what are you actually doing of use then?' quickly hoves into view.