For reasons known only to theselves, the Ministry of Defence decided not to comemerate the twentieth anniversary of the Falklands war. Somehow I cannot help feeling that this was partly to reduce the potential for controversy over the issue of the Sea Harrier. Likewise, the Government benefitted from other news which may have distracted the public. The death of Her Majesty The Queen Mother dominated the newspapers, the articles on the Sea Harrier/Fleet air defence in the Telegraph, including a piece by Admiral Sir John Woodward, were relegated to the middle pages. I may or may not have put a link to it in a SHAR thread - "SHAR Wars" perhaps? Then came the Football world cup.
As has been proven many times the Government likes to bury bad news, embedding the signal of its own policies amongst the noise of other news. News of cutbacks in defence are no exception from this way of doing things.
A final thought - should defence planning be based on (predicted) threats or on vulnerabilities?