Ed,
As always, thank you for your explanation.
At the end of the day however, we must never lose sight of the fact that an aircraft was lost uneccessarily IMHO and the opinion of many others, and that is not only a tragedy, but a disgrace to the RAF, MOD and this nation.
The problem(s) were well known about by a great many people at the top, and they all chose to ignore them, and the warning signs which were as clear as a bell. After all, who in their right mind would simply choose to ignore a QiQ report and a BAe report?
Why did they choose to do nothing? Well, I can think of no other reason whatsoever, other than money, or rather lack of it. From the very top down, as we all know, everyone is doing their level best to shield the person above them from bad news (it might affect their next promotion after all!) They don't want to be the bearer of bad news, and so it goes on. Sadly, in this case, the unthinkable happened and the likes of TD and many others are left to pick up the pieces and face the consequences.
You say 'why would the SoS for Defence ask a QC to do this, if all the blame rests within his own department' well, I should have thought that was obvious really Ed. The further and wider you can spread the smelly stuff, then the less and less of it falls on your lap! I am not suggesting for a moment that the QC appointed by the government (hmmm!) will not do a thorough job, but after the Hutton inquiry, I doubt if many have much faith.
And lets face it, if 100% of the blame currently lies with you, then initiating one of these fancy inquiries can only make it better for you can't it? If this government (MOD) can offload any of the blame, then they will gladly do so, and drag as many others into the frame with them as possible
We shall wait and see.
TSM