The fact is (according to the article) a fully loaded Slava cruiser came withing 30 miles of Scotland and basically just sat and waited for the Type 45 to come many many hours later! It doesn't matter if there were a couple of SSN lurking underneath or RAF knew exactly where it was.. the fact that it wasn't even intercepted and tailed by another surface combatant is an embarrassment.
I guarantee you a Russian or any country's warship will never get withing 30 miles of US coast without being tailed by at least a couple of other surface combatants and other 'unseen' assets.
Well, I would not so quickly dismiss a Royal Navy Trafalgar Class SSN being in the area, and probably right on the Slava Cruiser. The SSN could easily have "intercepted" the Slava and made its presence known. We just do not know those details.
Same is true of the RAF. The RAF could also easily have also contacted the Slava and ensured they knew they were there and were monitoring them.
Having said that, the Royal Navy should certainly have had some vessel intercept the Slava long before it got that close. The have Type 26, Duke Class frigates, which are very decent vessels themselves, which were based closer than the Type 45, Daring DDGs, so I do not know why they did not dispatch one.
As to the US Navy...you are exactly right.
We had an example of this in November of 2013, and it wasn't even a surface combatant, it was a Sierra II SSN (which tells you a lot about the US Navy's underwater detections capabilities).
CNN said:
US Navy detects Russian sub off U.S. East Coast
By Mike Mount
The U.S. Navy detected and tracked a Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine less than 300 miles from the southern U.S. East Coast last month, according to U.S. defense officials.
While the submarine did not enter U.S. territorial waters or follow any U.S. Navy ships, its arrival came while a Navy carrier strike group was training off Florida, according to defense officials who could not speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The move by the Russians to put the ship close to the U.S. demonstrates its desire to ramp up deep-water patrolling by its submarine fleet - something the Russian government has said it would do, officials said.
The newer Sierra-2 submarine is thought to be part of the Russian Northern Fleet, and this is the first time this class of sub has been detected this close to the U.S., the officials said.
The sub was discovered about 275 miles off the southern East Coast in international waters about two weeks ago and has been followed by the Navy since, defense officials said. Officials said the sub did not come close to the major U.S. Navy submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia, home to attack and ballistic missile submarines.
"Things worked the way they were supposed to," according to one of the officials when referencing how the Navy discovered the submarine.
While the officials would not disclose how the submarine was detected, the Navy has sensors in the air and water to detect and track such vessels.
The submarine has since turned back, and on Tuesday, it was about 600 miles off the U.S. coast heading eastward toward Europe, according to Navy officials.
It is not clear what the submarine was doing this close to the U.S., but officials say they assume it was conducting anti-submarine exercises, a return to a Cold War activity.
"They are doing what the U.S. does, patrolling and conducting exercises," one of the officials told Security Clearance.
The detection of the sub was first reported in the Washington Free Beacon.
The Sierra-2 is similar to the U.S. Los Angeles-class attack submarine and does not carry ballistic missiles - only torpedoes and other anti-submarine weapons.
The last time a Russian sub was detected close to the United States was in 2009, according to defense officials.
My problem with this report is that the US Navy made this announcement. They should have said nothing and just intercepted the thing, either with surface, air, or sub-surface assets.
Letting the world know that we knew about the Ruskie at that range without any vessels nearby, and then intercepted it based on that knowledge, says too much about the capabilities and will allow a good G2 team on the other side to start figuring out the various ways that is happening.
Some of that may be going on with the UK and the Royal Navy. Not announcing to the press anything of importance, and letting the presumption be something less than what they are capable of.
That's how that game is played...something the Obama administration, IMHO, has been very weak at...allowing far too much info to be deciminated in such conditions (ie. the Bin Laden operation).
Britain is squandering tons of money on two aircraft carriers , escorts , airplanes etc .... Instead they could have built one and spent rest of the money on corvettes and light frigates to "be in control" of their own shoreline . If you want to be "imperial" navy poking nose in other's people businesses , then you could expect them to return favor 
