If it haddn't been for goverment pressure BOAC would have dumped all VC10s in favour of 707s
There is an alternative school of thought that ascribes BOACs 'enthusiasm' for the 707 and it's undermining of the VC10 as being down to corruption.
Whatever the attributes of the aircraft, the political aspect of the VC10 was yet another sorry episode in the history of British aircraft industry post-WW2. The manufacturer and the primary customer were both state-owned and consequently the government should have either cancelled the aircraft or compelled the airline to support it properly. Neither company were profitable but both were seen as important to national interests. It is crazy that the government were subsidizing one of it's companies to build the aircraft whilst allowing another to purchase a rival foreign product.