Noble Lord
The Noble Lord certainly has it in for the A400M, as does The Register, apparently. While short on facts, his (unabbreviated) sentences remind me of how, in days of yore, columnists and others used to write (rather more moderately, for they were not writing in a "privileged environment") about Airbus civil projects, leading to the supposition that they were being fed material by a certain company then based on the upper west coast of the US.
As the A400M is designed to carry loads that the C-130 can't, perhaps the anti-Grizzlies are being "talked to over lunch" by people from (or near to) ... ???
With the growth of military loads, it was reasonable to see a "market opportunity" and get together to supply a need that would grow - after all, the quoted numbers of C-130s "out there" make a reasonably-sized target to aim at. The numbers ordered so far are those by the "launch customers", so "1600 Herks versus 170 Grizzlies" is an apples & oranges affair, as other figures he quoted would seem to be.
There is a market out there, and it's worth going for British Noble Naysayers or no !