My fear is that this judgment has opened up the spectre of things to be investigated by the civil courts. That is why this comes into train, although I know that they were aiming at high-level procurement.
I have to say as an aside that to start with in a war you always have to fight with the equipment you have got. Almost inevitably, certainly in the two wars that I have been in, the equipment that we had at the time was not what I would have used in that situation, but we had to get on with it. I bloody well—sorry, I knew that the equipment was not up to that task. I knew, for example, that I had put my ship in a position where my anti-aircraft capability would not work, but I was destroying an airfield and supporting Special Forces operations so I had to be there. Still, I knew jolly well that if there were heavy air attacks I would suffer;
indeed there were, and I was sunk. I am concerned that something could happen in a court where someone says, “Why did West do that when he knew jolly well that the equipment was not up to it?”, and that is wrong. That is the point that I am making: there could be an unintended consequence. That is what I am nervous about.