http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18008171
This is an example of the double-standard which exists towards spending at the MoD which I mentioned in another thread. They were planning to spend £2billion on converting a single aircraft carrier to carry just six planes. Personally I would have cancelled the project when the estimated cost reached £1.2billion. A senior Royal Navy spokesman assured the Parliamentary Defence Committee at the time that this was an "upper estimate".
It made no sense then from either an economic or strategic viewpoint. For the same money the Navy could have had twice as many aircraft of a slightly different type or even a second aircraft carrier from which to fly them. In the meantime they have scrapped a perfectly good fleet of Harrier vertical take-off aircraft.