Aircraft-carrier farce

sir – I have reservations about some of Dominic Cummings’s strategic plans, but he is correct to describe Britain’s new aircraft carriers as a farce.

Admiral Lord West (Letters, July 15) suggests that a look at the “detail” will show the global benefits of the carriers. If Lord West does precisely that, he will see that these assets are a legacy of Cold War thinking.

The reality is that we simply do not have the ships or resources to defend the carriers at sea, and we struggle to recruit the manpower to operate them.

When you add the need for hugely expensive, limited-capability F-35B aircraft to operate from the carriers, Lord West’s call for consideration of “detail” destroys his own argument.

We no longer have the resources or the appetite to remain a global military policing power. There are far cheaper and more effective ways of delivering humanitarian aid.

The 2021 defence review will provide a long-overdue reality check. Group Captain Alan Ferguson (retd) Hadleigh, Suffolk