As someone who works for the BBC, and isn't Political Editor Andrew Marr, I'm not allowed to express an opinion.

In fact all my opinions are buried in a lead-lined box somewhere on Teesside only to be dug up in the event of dismissal or a move into the profession which awaits old hacks - public relations. However, one recent story proved extremely hard to bite one's tongue over.

So what would someone who is allowed to express an opinion make of the Government's decision to award a £3bn aircraft carrier contract to a French company, but with the design overseen by an English one? They might think that it was a dreadful fudge, after the Government couldn't decide between offering the Navy's biggest-ever contract to BAE Systems (the English outfit) or Thales (the French one).

The Government, no doubt, thought it a pragmatic "third-way" solution which managed not to offend any one. But the prospects for an effective ship do not look good, surely no warship has ever been designed by committee and certainly not an Anglo-French one.

The boardroom bust-ups will be fantastic. "Merde! Zee rudder should not be zere, cretin!"

And if Thales not having built a warship before isn't enough to cause trepidation, history shows that previous collaborations with our oldest enemy should have persuaded the Government to give the aircraft carrier to either Thales or BAE outright.

According to Professor Keith Hartley of York University's Centre for Defence Economics there's a long list of joint projects fraught with difficulties. Concorde; the Jaguar fighter; the Horizon frigate programme between Britain, France and Italy, and eventually cancelled; an anti-tank missile developed by the French and Germans, also abandoned; the four-year behind schedule Eurofighter. All falling to the curse of the committee.

But perhaps what is most worrying of all is that the aircraft carrier project has been planned for five years. But now all that planning, all that money expended, has gone to waste, as a new carrier design will be knocked up.

And the first cracks in the "alliance" have already been seen. Less than a day after the Government announced the deal, Thales declared that it had been offered a third of the work. But this was immediately contradicted by Chris Geoghegan, BAE's chief operating officer in charge of the project, claiming it was "far too early to say" who has what share of the work.

Sounds like the aircraft carrier will need maximum power to sail it out of this sea of fudge, you might think.

I, however, couldn't possibly comment.

- lan Reeve is Business Correspondent, BBC TV North East & Cumbria.

Published: 18/02/2003