Well, well, well...
Whatever our views on the rights and wrongs of it, we should all be clear on one thing: it's cobblers for the UASes. This is simply a reflection of the fact that for the UASes to survive in the long term, they must survive every review (which seem to happen on a virtually annual basis), whilst on the other hand they only need to be axed once. So whether it's this time, next time or the time after, they've had it. I would actually put my money on it being this time, as somehow it just feels that the mood of the government/service/country is ready for this once important part of our national fabric to be ended.
And so what about the rights and wrongs? Well, frankly, I think that the UASes now would be best put out of their misery. I (almost) completely agree with BEagle's post of about a week ago - the UAS system worked well when it was a recruiting ground and a forum to promote "air-mindedness" within the future generation of leaders of society. Turning it into a mini-EFT, and judging its success on that basis, robbed it of what it did well. And as many have observed previously, the UASes can never do EFT well, especially if that involved streaming, for a whole host of reasons well covered by previous postings.
In the grand scheme of things, UASes cost buttons, and if correctly assessed and not asked to do a job they were never designed for, their contribution to the Air Force and society would be 10 or 100 times their cost. But now the system is a shadow of its former self, and in many ways is actually disruptive to the aims of the Service. I now hear that UASes fail to recruit the high-calibre studes that they once did. I am not surprised. A great opportunity has been wasted, and one day this decision will be regarded as a paradigm of "penny wise, pound foolish". But it won't be the first, and certainly, certainly won't be the last.
I am afraid (as will be most readers of this post, I'm sure) that this specific situation - essentially irrational decisions regarding the allocation of government funds - is reflefctive of a far, far broader and long-standing problem. The history of the RAF alone (representing a tiny slice of total government expenditure) is littered with examples of exactly this - the TSR-2, Nimrod AEW programme, closure of Abingdon, Scampton, now Lyneham, ..., to name but a few.
Basically, the top and bottom of it is that the incentive structure in the public sector is perverse. If a private company consistently makes bad business decisions, it goes bankrupt. When governments do, nobody beyond those directly affected care. In industry, private companies are incentivised to get the best people for job in question, knowing that the higher quality of person doing a job, the more money that can be made or saved. This is why decent finance people get paid £100k+. In the MOD, business cases are done by low-grade analysts and accoutants (who would never get a job in the private sector) on £20k. So often their analysis is bollox. And, unlike in the private sector, there is no smart and highly experienced person to tell them that the anaylsis is bollox, or to give due regard to the value externalities, which in the case of the UASes is huge.
This extends to the current breed of senior officers, who have become pseudo-politicians. This is not surprising as, ultimately, they are judged by politicians. Their "election issue" is making savings - so lopping a few tens of millions off the budget this year by making some saving or other (e.g. culling the UASes) will get some brownie points. And by the time the folly of the decision is realised, the individual(s) concerned have been promoted, posted, and have moved on. And in this disposable age when not even government ministers resign any more, there is no atmosphere of accountability (the military was always rather poor at this anyway).
I am ranting now. But just look at things the government provides (NHS, railways (sort of - still heavily meddled with by regulation), Post Office, police) and compare it with the private sector (Virgin Atlantic, BUPA, DHL, Securicor). Trust the government with something, and look what happens.
I am afraid that I cannot foresee any positive solution to this as the problem is so systemic - it is an intrinsic problem with democracy. Politicians quite correctly pander to the plebs who vote for them.
As we mourn its passing, let's raise a glass to the UAS system we all knew and (mostly) loved. One thing Tony Blair can't take away is our fond memories of it.