A commensurate cull of the "enrichment" 1*s and the winnowing of the 2* cadre will produce both savings and open up the prospect of keeping the promotion system alive during the next few years.
If we assume that CAS, CinC Air, DCinC Air, AMP and the various 2*s, and their army and navy equivalents, are all busy (and I haven't noticed any who seem to be wandering out the various HQs with nothing to do) then just who is going to pick up all the work that will still need to be done? Can we assume that this is the government's much vaunted "efficiency"? Those that remain will just have to work even harder? We are already seeing work being missed, more and more legislation adding to the workload, decisions not being made, deadlines being missed in various of our HQs. This approach just isn't going to work!
And completely agree with BomberH. Where are the commensurate reductions in MOD civil service star count? I can nominate a few that would be worthy of culling!!