SOSL
In reply to your last two posts, I think the obvious things our airships don't talk about is the elephant in the room; that DE&S/MAA has advised six Mins(AF) and the Head of the Civil Service to uphold the rulings mentioned.
The current staffs are stuck between a rock and a hard place. To advise Min and HoCS otherwise would be to openly disagree with their immediate predecessors, who have been mostly responsible for their advancement. So, they continue to follow the same old party line, hoping against hope that nothing will happen on their watch. We saw this blind allegiance when Dalton pinned his colours to the mast when writing to the press agreeing with these retired VSOs; and then complete silence when his appalling lack of judgement was exposed and Lord Philip ruled against them. He is by no means an isolated case.
I have no doubt some in the MAA disagree with the rulings (and, equally, many don't give a damn), but until they say this, and stop hiding in the background while DE&S spout this rubbish in MoD's name, there can be no wider openness and honesty. In turn, this militates against what Wg Cdr Spry is trying to achieve (and the MAA SHOULD be trying to achieve).
I understand, up to a point, when the Wg Cdr says he cannot comment on past or present policy (same thing in this case). But that inability to even speak of the elephant, never mind cull it, is precisely what caused the systemic failings in the first place. The opportunity to constrain this to an isolated act of insanity was lost long ago, and support for it is now too deeply ingrained in our upper echelons. (MAA - it is now 2.5 years since a Minister arranged for you to be briefed on this; what have you done? Nothing, except disparage those who had the balls to report it ). Yet, it is an offence NOT to report such failings (read your letters of delegation). Such abrogation is itself systemic, not because people are incompetent but because they are frightened to speak up. That one admission by Wg Cdr is the best argument for true MAA independence.