Are the new carriers doomed?

The BBC yesterday speculated whether the credit crunch will affect the building of the two new aircraft carriers - Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales. Now I suspect that for mainly political reasons - some of the yards are in Labour heartlands (or at least were - its called Scotland!) - the ships will be built but one issue that seems to have missed everyone is the fact that the aircraft are American F-35s. We are planning to spend £6,000m on these aircraft which translated into $12,000m until recently. Unfortunately the pound has nosedived against the dollar and the same amount of dollars will cost us £8,000m.

Firstly where is the extra £2,000m coming from?

Secondly the general costs of the F-35 have doubled and other countries might well pull out especially in a downturn, which in turn will increase the costs of the remaining.

So what will happen? Options I suspect might well be navalise the Typhoon, F-18s or maybe Rafales .... or build the carriers but have nothing to fly from them ......