I, too, tend to be fair toward Dr Fox. Ministers and staff are seen to speak with one voice, but he clearly wasn't comfortable with the official party line. One must remember that in this period Ministers were being serially lied to by senior MoD staff, over Nimrod XV230, Chinook ZD576, Hercules XV179 and more. On an almost daily basis these lies were being publicly exposed and Fox was one of a few Tory "grandees" to buck protocol and criticise their briefings. (Rifkind, Major and Howarth, for example. Howarth wanted BAeS in the dock over MRA4, but when presented with the truth stepped back). The culmination was Fox convening the Defence Council to get round Graydon's machinations, and accepting Lord Philip's recommendations.