The coalition’s carrier trouble
We will be presented with the full defence review at around 1430 today – but already its contents are spilling out across the papers. Much of it is unsurprising: a delay for the Trident upgrade, two new aircraft carriers, etc. But some of it is slightly more surprising: for instance, the immediate decommissioning of both our 80-strong fleet of Harriers and the Navy’s 25 year-old flagship, the HMS Ark Royal. As Liam Fox admitted on the Today Programme earlier, those last two measures will mean that Britain loses the ability to fly jets from its carriers for up to ten years. Ruling the waves, and even the skies, has been