Lewis Page is a moron, good at very little except reveling in his status as defence industry king-fool No1 having been elevated there by a popular press ever more ignorant of military affairs. He belongs to a certain type of British person who fawns over everything American, and thinks progress can be found in shamelessly aping US practise. Nothing good ever comes from these Yank-lovers. Every article bangs away at the same tedious misguided message - everything produced by the US is fantastic, there's no point in having an indigenous defence industry. BAE (Big And Expensive) might be a bunch of pirates who produce dodgy equipment - though just as much, if not more, blame lies in the lap of Whitehall for their shameful policy of "for but not with" fitting and UOR scrambles - but further entrenching our status as a US supplicant isn't the answer.
For what it's worth, most UK services folk think he's an idiot too, judging by the posts on ARRSE.
We'd be in a much better position if good outfits like Vickers, RO, English Electric, Hawker-Siddley, Cammell Laird, Ferranti, etc. hadn't been melted down like church-roof lead along with their highly-skilled, highly-professional workforces in the 80s and 90s. Thank god Vosper Thornycroft is still on the go.
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