Ultimately, in a parliamentary democracy, the buck stops … in parliament. However powerful a government might think itself to be, it lives and dies by permission of parliament, which can bring it down with one vote of confidence. Short of that nuclear option, the day-to-day work of scrutinising government is – or should be – carried out by the select committees, which do the spade work. They are the bodies that really get down to detail, call the witnesses and examine the documents, producing at great expense detailed reports which, themselves often provide the basis of debates on the floor of the House. That is how the system works … or should do. Except it doesn't – not, at least when it comes to the Defence Committee.

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Hmm, bit worried about 'congenital'. It rather implies it runs in the family and they could rightly get miffed. An 'irredeemable' idiot? A dyed-in-the-wool fool? An Appleby aperitif?

Yea ... that'll do!

The funniest thing is the committee asking the principal customers of DE&S what they think of DE&S?

Its like someone asking a Tesco supplier what they think of Tesco.

You couldnt make this stuff up!

To say they are clowns is a bit of an insult to clown

Suppliers are not quite the same as customers and, presumably, opinions vary according to whether they buy or supply.

I suppose technically the customers of DE&S are MoD users. The list of organisations asked to provide evidence on the effectiveness of DE&S were amongst others Serco, VT Group, EADS and the Defence Industries Council. Of course they gave glowing references for their customer, DE&S, why would you slag off your principal customer. It makes their testimony worthless. In fact I don't know why they bothered, there are public service metrics available for all to see.