orca,
No politician, or anyone of sufficient influence to worry about, is ever going to make up their mind one way or another on the grounds of opinion, heresay, drivel and fiction from an internet forum or blog. These places are for sad individuals like us who can't let the day job go...and for a weird bunch who would like our day job but never really got round to it.
Unfortunately it is not that simple - and that is really why Sharkey has rattled so many cages with his inane blog postings. As every politician knows, if you throw enough mud at something, some of it will stick. So Sharkey keeps chucking mud at the RAF, in concert with the steady stream of letters from Woodward, and TV interviews with West. It doesn't matter that much of it is BS that can be directly rebutted by the MoD (and, I am led to believe, even the SofS is fed up with Sharkey)...
All it needs is for the mud-slinging to make the press consistently over a few weeks and it starts to become an issue for Number 10. Number 10 is supposed to consult its defence experts (ie MoD) when making defence decisions, but they don't
have to (for example, it is rumoured that Dave's televised suggestion of a no-fly zone a few weeks ago was the first MoD had heard of it).
A press / public perception that Typhoon is rubbish, the Tornado is out of date, the hotels are too expensive, and that everything could be done better by the Navy
could end up with a Number-10 led decision which goes against all the "inside knowledge" we all have. At least posting stuff on here gives the journalists something else to read and set against Sharkey's BS.
Sharkey and co. have annoyed the RAF all the more because CAS stated before SDSR that the RAF would not get involved in funding battles through back-door leaks, private briefing, etc etc. This reflects well on the RAF within Main Building itself, but like I said above, it doesn't really help the RAF elsewhere in the corridors of power...
PS Where do you think Sharkey gets his up-to-date information on the exact hotels being used by the RAF dets? Has he got a network of observers in Southern Italy, looking for blokes in flying suits, debriefing their manouevres using hands in the bar? Or is a close relative of his, who works in a major joint operational headquarters, passing him the info? I think we should be told....