This thread is beginning to look like the transcript of a 15 minute chat between a Sun reporter and an ex pilot with Alzheimers...
For those looking (on this and many another thread) for ulterior motives, try to remember that wars are fought with (often very) incomplete information and analysis that was anything from 1% to 100% incorrect. There will ALWAYS be somebody involved, who doesn't manage to carry the argument, who actually got it right. In retrospect they'll be seen to be right, and everyone will cluck about how even an idiot whould have seen the sensible path at the time. AT the time vision is rather more impaired.
Black Buck was quite ambitious, my abiding memory of Ascension is that of Victor tankers roaring into the sky at night ... repeatedly... In my view the Victor crews were tops, they supported everyone. That Black Buck actually worked was amazing, that anyone planted an ARM into a radar on the Falklands was amazing, and anyone who thinks that there was some sort of political agenda in the upper reaches of the RAF is probably a teeny bit correct - the RAF undoubtedly wanted to have bodies and platforms involved wherever possible - but to imagine that this was some sort of attempt to keep the V bombers involves the ability to insert ones's head up one's a**e to a significant degree.
Dave