Coalition all at sea after carrier project fails to take off

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/11/coalition-carrier-project-take-off

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Another day, another U-turn, and more incompetence. Not content with throwing away the Ark Royal, the Harrier force and four decades of naval aviation experience, David Cameron crowed that UK air operations over Libya were achieved without an aircraft carrier. Then the decision (Cameron forced into U-turn as carrier costs soar, 10 May) that after £40m spent on "studies" into using a fixed-wing plane unlikely to enter service for 10 years, our new carriers will have Harrier-type aircraft, as the previous government had intended. So we could have kept Ark Royal or her sister ship, Illustrious (just back in service after a £40m refit), and the Harriers flying, instead of being sold to the US.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy can no longer provide a frigate for the international force combatting Somali pirates and the Coastguard has been stripped of its emergency salvage, pollution control and towing vessels – we now rely on what the private sector can scrape up at the time. Does this government have any understanding that we are a maritime nation? Peter North Melton Constable, Norfolk

• With clockwork regularity the ugly truth about the government's militarism surfaces then disappears without trace as the headlines return to the effects of cuts due to lack of funds – two unneeded £4bn aircraft carriers (four times the size of any we have built before); more billions spent on aircraft for the carriers; £100bn already being spent on a new fleet of nuclear submarines not approved by parliament; over £1bn a year being spent at Aldermaston on the illegal rebuilding of our arsenal of thermonuclear weapons; £36bn a year spent on the military, with additional billions spent on gratuitous foreign wars; undisclosed amounts spent on government promotion of the products of the UK arms manufacturers. No wonder we are reducing child support grants. Jim McCluskey Twickenham, Middlesex

• Can somebody explain to me why Britain needs aircraft carriers? Delusions of prestige by upper-middle class admirals weaned on tales of glory involving Admiral Nelson seems to me to be the only possible answer. Britain is an intermediate European power. How much use would the carriers be in a potential conflict in remote parts with a significant enemy? Very little. They would be rapidly sunk, as were HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse in 1942. Even the US Nimitz class aircraft carriers require a fleet of defensive vessels well beyond British capabilities. Alan Sharples Leeds