It's against my nature to say anything in support of the RAF, but all the "learn best practise from the airlines" is being taken a bit far.
My experience of Airbus in the airline world is that there is a frankly astonishingly large amount of clutter loafing around the average cockpit, including behind the side sticks. Cups, glasses cases, newspapers, ipads, iphones, cutlery, stray hand baggage, plogs, food trays plus the enormous and ever growing pile of paper that spews incessantly from the acars box.
Sounds like some crappy luck.