The controversy surrounding the gap between AEI's profit forecast and its results for 1967 is often cited as being deeply implicated in the introduction into the UK of a system of mandatory accounting standards. This paper re-examines the gap and suggests that (a) there is no compelling evidence that the gap was caused in the main by what would now be called flexibility in accounting policy choice; and (b) there was no widespread consensus at the time among lay observers that the cause of the gap was such flexibility. As a consequence, had the gap been an isolated incident it might well have been both appropriate and politically feasible for the profession to explain that the gap did not in fact imply the desirability of a programme of accounting standards designed to reduce flexibility in accounting policy choice.