However, I am certainly not convinced that a circa 40,000 strong force looks efficient when you look at what we can actually deploy.
Just because an individual may be providing logs or other support functions rather than actually sitting in a cockpit doesn't mean that they aren't necessary or supporting ops in their own way. Don't get sucked in to thinking size equates to efficiency or effectiveness - that is a Sir Humphrey definition of a successful civil service department.
In the Army, a single rifleman is a unit of fighting power. In the RAF, in flying terms, an individual aircraft is a unit of fighting power, but it requires far far more operational and logistical support to get it in the air than a rifleman does to get out on patrol. Whereas the Army equips the man, the RAF - and I suspect the RN - mans the equipment which may give rise to perceptions of inefficiency and excessive manning.
The argument over efficiency and numbers was something we had near constant issues with in JHC where the RAF and AAC had different shift patterns and manning levels / routines. By simplifying things down to a pure numbers game, Radford is completely missing the point that the single services have different ways of doing ops and those individual ways of doing things will come with their own manning requirements.
However, I think you're spot on about not raising this as an issue in the press, however, well intentioned. All it will do is pull the beancounters of the fence and armchair generals out of retirement to argue for their own single services when we should be pulling together and collectively fighting the politicians who would happily see us cut to shreds.