Surely the point here is that capitalism will save us all (and Boris knows this).
And if the sweaty masses really want a floating Gin palace named after a man that married into royalty and lived in luxury to an exceptionally old age, the markets will source the Labour, build the boat and charge blue-rinsers to ride around the Med in it…
We live in the age of millennial, gig-economy, subsistence slaves and “interns” all looking for opportunities to build their world experience and add to the resume till their YouTube channels take off… I’m sure they could be put to work assembling a new cruise ship, and at the end it scores them points towards their DOE gold badge or whatever.
Cunard will happily take over stewardship and call it the ‘Grandad Phil’ or whatever name the (by then) King William approves…
The point is we don’t need to fund BAE to build “HMS should he still be driving?”. If they want a flag waving boat the chumocracy can probably grift the the thing into existence without skimming the public’s already depleted resources…
I suspect the queen is better aware than our great PM of how this plays, and will slap the idea down when next they talk.