Giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee today were Jon Thompson, Permanent Secretary, Bernard Gray, Chief of Defence Materiel and Air Marshal Stephen Hillier, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, Military Capability, Ministry of Defence.

Watch it here, in full gory detail

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=13160

Jon Thompson, who I think is very very under rated and a breath of fresh compared to what went before, made a fairly significant statement on the information on which the decision to switch to the F35C was made;

Deeply Flawed and Immature

Exactly, my point all along was the speed of the decision making, a decision that went against years of established staff work, was far too fast.

It seems now, the MoD have come to an agreement on this point, the decision was made far too quickly based on shoddy process.

Air Chief Marshall Hillier also confirmed something else that we discussed, the secrecy involved with the decision making process, bypassing the normal team involved and made by a little clique.

It is well worth watching in full, loads of interesting snippets that add to the debate

This is significant stuff, significant for the relationship between politicians, civil servants and the military

A sad tale indeed but with the reforms from Bernard Grey and Jon Thompson around project governance and decision making one can be forgiven a glimmer of optimism.