Listening to the Air Force Minister last night I had this awful feeling of déja vu as he said there was "no new evidence". I was particularly astonished to hear him comparing the "quality of judgement" of the MoD compared to that of the 5 enquiries so far.
To look at quality judgement applied to one piece of new evidence - that of the speed of the Chinook before it entered IMC.
It seems to me that the crux of Wratten's argument is based on the "fact" that it was going too fast for the conditions. How do we compare the quality of that judgement to that of Mr Holbrook who, in new evidence, stated that he thought it was going slower than normal as if it was engaged in SAR. I'm sure Mr Holbrook would not claim to be an expert in assessing aircraft speed but at least he actually saw it. Wratten's "high quality" judgement seems to be based only on the Boeing simulation and there is now new evidence which puts this into question.
In the face of such arrogance it seems to me that those of us who have actively campaigned for justice may still have a lot of work to do - letters to MP's again etc. If we need to add names and addresses to the petition in order to get it recognised at No 10, I for one would be happy to do so.
Congratulations to those who have worked so hard to achieve so much in the face of such difficulties. In particular I would like to pay tribute to Brian whose calm, positive and helpful approach has been an inspiration.