The Bean Counters have found a cheaper way of doing this SAR business and the RAF was just no cost effective anymore.
is the major concern from my perspective.
I'm not SAR, never have been and never will be, so I don't have any personal axe to grind with the decision, but where does it stop? So we have found someone who can provide a mil-SAR capability cheaper. We have a SoS who has more in common with McNamara than Churchill (and didn't Macnamara's business orientated approach work wonders), so I can see the bean counters will be sitting there with their calculators, eagerly looking to see how this goes and assuming all goes well, will be looking for what else can be hived off.
But SASless' comments, which I have no doubt are correct, demonstrate that this is just another step towards treating the military as a business with a balance sheet which has to be presented to the shareholders. Unfortunately it isn't that simple; the military is not and never will be a business and the sooner the politicians realise that they are dealing with the nation's insurance policy, the easier it will be for everyone concerned. The nation as a whole will benefit as we will have a properly funded and resourced capability across all the Services, serving personnel will be proud to be a part of a credible organisation and enjoy doing their bit rather than what we have now, which is a grind it out until pension point approach in an underfunded, over stretched and politically abused Military.
As capable as Bristow undoubtedly is, it's just another step on the road to contractorisation of the entire military capabilty and if we're not careful, the only role that guys and girls in uniform will have in years to come is to get shot at because no other organisation could be found to take on the role at a price the Government was willing to pay.