Content
I appreciate that such official literature needs to be vetted by the MoD and other organisations prior to publication, for obvious reasons, but the scope should be limited to the factual content of the books, not the style!
It's ok, for them to request a change to text, including an omission be made on the grounds of security, but in my view, up to the writer and publisher to determine the style of the prose.
So, if the grounds were purely on style then the fact the book covered recent history would not make a jolt of difference. It's obvious, as the writer of the article noticed, it's not about style, it's about the content and the embarassment it would cause. More spin.
Perhaps a few embarassing disclosures about what goes on in government departments may actually prevent those departments from screwing up and acting in the way they do.