I don't know how much this post is the manifestation of a bad mood.
It does sound like a bear with a sore head a bit, although I agree with most of the sentiment.
David, Willy (I think Charles and Espemor) and I talked to Monaghan about the risk of looking like 'political interference'. She is well aware of how things will look and my impression is that she has a canny understanding of what is productive and what not. She and her colleagues are absolutely entitled to ask Sharpe to account for himself. They know full well that they are not entitled to write NICE guidelines, but they can express an opinion.
My view of the abusive tweets is more laid back. In comparison to the comments lists on the Guardian they are pretty benign - just a reflection of the vitriol that human beings love throwing at each other. I cannot see them doing any real harm simply because any reasonably competent psychiatrist should be able to cope with this sort of thing every five minutes, not just every day.
I agree that the situation is evolving. I am acutely aware that what is needed is for UK medical academics to engage seriously in the debate. There have been some sensible voices from the US and now from Bastian but they are all a bit 'noises off', partly because of geography and partly because these are mostly people who interested by not actively engaged (like Levin or Goodwin).
In terms of UK medical academics actively engaged in trying to make sense of the research scene, but not tied down by having to apply for grants or inextricable connections with MRC, the buck seems to keep stopping with me. Up until now I have followed a policy of responding to requests for my opinion. In May that will change when I present a Grand Round on the problem of Unblinded Trials of Therapist -Delivered Treatments to the UCH Department of Medicine. I will pose the question as to who is prepared to stand up and be counted - for whatever position they might want to hold. I am very much looking at the wider context and MUS.
Oblique responses will do for the popular press but in the end the popular press does not matter in this. What matters is decision making within academic medicine. I agree with you that at times things look about as promising as the banks of the Somme 100 years ago but so far nobody has really tried to restore some sanity. We need a new phase - not of propaganda but rational argument. Cochrane has shifted but it has its own problems. The debate needs to be aired within medical academia as a whole. What I think people here may forget is that the debate is still largely invisible to the medical academic community outside liaison psychiatry.