I echo the condolences to all who have been and will be affected by this, probably the first of many such headlines that we will see over the coming months. The announcement of course was that the RAF would lose 5,000 by 2015. Marry this up with the 3,000 redundancies that have been announced, the normal outflow and reduced recruiting and even retaining 30,000 by 2015 looks unlikely.
I am reminded of a couple of lines from Kipling:
.....Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken;
And stoop and build 'em up again with worn-out tools.
So many of us are weary of building with worn out tools, many of which are almost beyond repair.