Would governments have sold off mature Malta carriers?

Are you underestimating a British government's willingness to sell off 20- or 30-year-old Malta-class carriers?

He thinks their operational visibility during late-Cold-War and post-Cold-War interventions would have made retention and replacement politically attractive.

Carriers entering replacement age in the late 1980s or 1990s would have been highly visible tools during an activist period of British foreign policy. Their recurring use for air support and international presence could have strengthened the case for retaining them and funding successors.