I'm afraid that all too often the secrecy has simply been replaced with lies.
I tried to write this story for the Sunday Times this week but received the following response which I post here for anyone to say whether the first sentence is another case of secrets or lies, or is actually true.
“There will be no change to the Air Defence of the United Kingdom. The Tornado F3 will continue to fly from RAF Leuchars and will maintain the Northern Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) commitment at that Station until its planned Out of Service Date in 2011.”
Given the MoD claim that UK air defences would not be affected, we felt unable to continue with the story, which said the MoD was cutting Britain's air defences by 40 per cent at a time when the Russians were increasingly trying it on in the North Sea not to mention the 9/11 evidence of what could be done with a hijacked plane.