Argumentum Ad Hominem
JP,
The "argumentum ad hominem" is not always fallacious - in some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motive, etc are legitimate and relevant to the issue. In my view your distinguished RAF career and posts held appear to be very relevant to your motives for making your comments, and indeed your position on most of the questions that have been posed back to you. I am afraid that I am not part of any conspiracy - my formal critique of what in, my view, were the major inadequacies of the engineering and airworthiness aspects of the original BoI, which I originally made as a consultant (and on a pro bono basis) for the Tapper family, has been available on the Mull website for more than 10 years - I have seen nothing in the way of arguments since to make me change my mind, and I plan to send an updated version to Lord Philip, under my own name.
Indeed, with the availability of new (in the sense that it was neither sought by, nor made available to, the BoI) evidence from people like Boscombe Down, and events such as the HofL Inquiry, my belief in the injustice of this verdict is now greater than ever. The more recently exposed general issues of military airworthiness that have come to light with the publication of the Haddon-Cave Report further reinforce the need fully to investigate what has been going wrong with MOD's processes and procedures - an issue which, clearly, goes back to a time well before the period H-C looked at. Hence I would see any conspiracy (your word not mine) as being with those who are trying to cover up these mistakes, and not with those who wish to expose them and thus regain the accountability that should never have been lost.
Since we both know to whom we are talking your good wishes are sincerely reciprocated!
JB