What I had not realised when I wrote Nimrod Rise and Fall was that, after the decision to stop the project was announced, a proposal was made to the Government to offer the aircraft for sale to ‘friendly’ Countries. This was obviously a very sensible course of action at the time since the Government was trying to save money and would clearly have benefited from the sale. Furthermore besides boosting the Country’s finances the sale would have brought a lot of work to the builders and sub-contractors of the Nimrod.  However the Government response to this offer was to ignore it and immediately start chopping up the aircraft as was done with the TSR2. One can only assume that the Government realised what fools they would look in the eyes of the World if they cancelled the World’s best maritime aircraft and let some other Country operate it.

Now six years later the Government is having to spend at least two billion dollars of foreign currency to buy a markedly inferior aircraft operationally with no significant industrial benefit to the UK. Surely a  very sad and bad decision and some would say a typical example of this Government’s ‘reign of error’.