Liam Fox rows back on carrier sharing

For a while then, it looked as though Britain and France really were going to share aircraft carriers as a mesure d’austérité. But, today, Liam Fox seems to have put a block on the idea, describing it in Paris as “utterly unrealistic”. He did, though, add that we could pool some of our transport planes and helicopters with the French (which sounds like the military equivalent of hitching a lift, if we happen to be going in the same direction). And Fox’s spokesman has since said that there still might be “strategic co-operation across the maritime domain,” whatever that means. So some sort of link-up with the French should be expected.

Fiscally speaking, ruling out carrier sharing could leave the MoD struggling to find more savings as it scrabbles to fund a nuclear deterrent. But, politically speaking, it could make the coalition’s life a little easier. As George Eaton says over at the New