MoD Insists £126m Each For 160 Cold War Fighters Is Excellent Use Of Bankrupt Nation’s Overdraft

The Public Accounts Committee’s doubts about the £20bn cost of 160 Typhoon fighters - designed in the 80s for the sole purpose of rushing RAF officers into the stratosphere to wave at ancient Soviet reconnaissance bombers – were met with open-mouthed incredulity at the Ministry of Defence today.

“The Typhoon is proving its value in Libya even as I speak, where every day our plucky flyboys are getting closer to working out which of the blips its radar positively identifies as a stonking great Russian bomber is actually one of Gaddafi’s rusty tanks and which is just some chicken-farmer feeding his hens,” insisted defence secretary Dr Liam Fox. “Well, that’s what they do when there’s enough string to stop all the important bits falling off, anyway.”

If it ends the fear of Zeppelins, it's worth every penny

Meanwhile, potential overseas buyers were having huge fun watching the £126m interceptors to see if they can carry out ground-attack missions half as well as the far cheaper multi-role F-16s the Americans sold them 30 years ago.

Defence experts are wondering what the PAC will have to say when it finds out about the MoD’s other pet projects which are running late and over budget, such as Nellie the self-propelled trench excavator, the Pemberton-Billing anti-Zeppelin quadruplane and Champion the robo-horse.