Much of this has a familiar ring

Defence procurement, UK-style. I especially like this paragraph:

...the Airbus sell-off makes the government's decision in 2000 to spend £2.5bn on Airbus A400M transport planes for our forces, instead of better American ones, look very foolish. By the time the A400Ms are finally delivered, in 2011 at the earliest, their purchase will almost certainly no longer be guaranteeing many British jobs. We might as well have bought some more Hercules or C-17s from the US; they'd have been cheaper, better and in service already. And we could really use the aircraft: our lack of military air transport is a source of great weakness, as we struggle to sustain large overseas deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq...

Imagine an article like this one (read the whole thing) in the Canadian general interest media. Hah!