Eurofighter: pounds 16bn cost of UK 'insurance policy'

In matters of high-cost, state-of-the art military aircraft, the language as well as the philosophy of a Labour government stands transformed. In 1964, Harold Wilson damned the TSR-2 with faint praise: "If it works, and does what is expected of it at reasonable cost, we shall want it."

A few months later, and the supersonic fighter-bomber was scrapped, and replaced by the US-built F-111.

No such weasel words yesterday from George Robertson, the Secretary of State for Defence, as he appended this Labour government's signature to the memorandum of understanding that cleared the way to full-scale production of the four-nation Eurofighter, spiritual descendant of the TSR-2.

Instead, the very blandest of justifications for a project with a pounds 40bn price tag, of which pounds 16bn will be picked up by the British taxpayer. It was, he said in Bonn, "an insurance policy for uncertain years ahead". But for Eurofighter's multitude of critics, the real uncertainty is another: are there any enemies around who merit production of this hugely expensive piece of hardware?

The Eurofighter belongs to a generation of blue-riband weapons programmes like the $2bn B-2 bomber and the $2bn Seawolf submarine in the US, all conceived to meet a Cold War threat that no longer exists.

In the 1980s, Nato air supremacy against numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces in central Europe was vital. But now that half the pact is about to join Nato, and the Soviet Union has vanished, the original rationale is no more. Had the Eurofighter happened 10 years later, it probably would have gone the way of the TSR-2.

There remain some solid arguments in favour of the aircraft though - in the view of most independent analysts - not for the full quota of 232 ordered by the RAF. Their most obvious function is in a high-intensity regional war like the Gulf conflict; though in taking on a "rogue state" like Iraq or Iran, replacing the Tornado and the Jaguar by the Eurofighter would be a case of substituting the vastly superior with the immeasurably superior. Obviously too, the Eurofighter would add teeth to the peacekeeping missions which will be a prime task of the armed forces of Britain and its Nato partners in years to come.

But then again, do we need a sledgehammer to swat a fly ?

"The Government should maintain its commitment to Eurofighter," the independent Saferworld security think-tank stated in a report this month, but "scale down its order rate from 20 to 12 a year".

In truth, Mr Robertson's signature acknowledged two realities: the 40,000 aerospace jobs which Eurofighter will guarantee in Britain alone well into the new millennium - and the risk of allowing the US a monopoly of the market.

As with the TSR-2, a US alternative exists in the F-22 stealth fighter. But though it is a superior aircraft, the F-22 is almost twice as expensive as Eurofighter. And even if production was partially farmed out, it would generate far fewer jobs in the United Kingdom.

The hope of course is that exports bring down the unit cost of the jet. Smaller Nato countries are possible customers, but other potential purchasers in the Middle East and Asia are beset by financial problems. This is also to reckon without the inevitable ferocious competition from the US.

The omens from France are not encouraging. The Dassault-built Rafale, direct competitor to the Eurofighter, has won not a single export order, and its only customer, the French government, is slashing its initial order for 48 of the aircraft.