didn't some MP or other not forecast the end of Manned military flight back in the 1960's. That lead to TSR2's cancelation (sic)
It was Duncan Sandys who was the advocate of 'push button warfare' and his ridiculous ideas led to the infamous 1957 Defence White Paper which started the spiral descent into oblivion of today's piddling little air farce..
It resulted in the end of any lead the UK had in ac technology, no UK manned fighter was built after the Lightning (apart form a few mud moving things) apart from international programmes such as Jaguar, Tornado and TypHoon.... The manned strategic bomber (Avro 730) died; we thus didn't get a Vulcan replacement.
Should the RAF ever become the Royal Aeromodel Force reliant on UCAVs, truly there will be no hope. The bean counting politicians would love the idea, of course - no aircrew to pay, just kids brought up on computer games like MS flight simulator!