Random REF thought

I can't help think that the REF has a number of features in common with the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.  

Few, apart from the apparatchiks with their snouts in the trough and those compromised by the Stasi  actually wanted it to carry on. Nobody really believed in it any more, but nobody wanted to say so. So everything just carried on until one day some brave people had the courage to say in public: "I don't believe in this any more" and amazingly they found that they were not alone. 

Ask a political sociologist. When legitimacy leaks away and people don't believe then it doesn't matter how many tanks are parked on the lawn. When the honest men and women massively outnumber the arse-lickers and lick-spittles then it is possible to say; "No, we are not going to take this any more, we want to do things differently".