Thatcher dead

[Norman Verona]

Bob, I meant by that that we should have given the UN a chance to tell Argentina to withdraw or else. 

 

However if no assistance to get them to withdraw was forthcoming from the UN then we would have the high moral ground to do what we did. Given that Argentina was a right wing dictatorship I suspect we may have been successful. 

 

One of the speeches in the house this afternoon had a really good line.

 

Someone asked her if she valued consensus politics. She had replied that she valued consensus politics as long as the consensus followed her convictions.  

 

I am disgusted if Ken Livingstone left the studio during the speeches telling Andrew Neil that he had some gardening to do. I've met Livingstone a few times and he's gone right down in my estimation if that's true.

[Moff88]

Unfortunately Norm I believe that your suggested line would have given the Argentineans time to prepare their defences and procure more equipment for their forces. Argentina isn't exactly one for being internationally cooperative. They are big fans of hiding war criminals and have no interest in self determination, so I don't believe it would have been a good policy.

[Norman Verona]

And sending a huge task force which was highly visible and took weeks to arrive didn't give them time to prepare.

 

Of course, if we can put away the emotion, they do have a claim to the Falklands as it was theirs before we took it from them. However with 98% (or whatever) English occupancy we also have a good case.

[Moff88]

That was still the minimum time we could give them. And applying to the UN for permission to defend your own soil looks very weak politically and would have reduced the British claim. And I agree that they have a claim. But I think its very small and no stronger than Spain or France's really. It's just another distraction technique from their government and the long term dispute over resources.

[Norman Verona]

The point I make is that we formed the UN after the last world war and now complain that it doesn't do what it was set up for. Well, if we bypass it every time we go to war what do you expect. An emergency meeting of the Security Council would have been possible the next day, at most the day after. We would then have been seen to have wanted to settle this (ie, get the Argentinians out) peacefully.

 

As far as I can remember, we just went and attacked at significant loss of life on both sides. We also acted disgarcefully in sinking the Belgrano when she was leaving the area.

 

Please don't misunderstand me, of course we needed to get them out. I just think that using huge force with no attempt at diplomacy was wrong.

[M444TTB]

Sinking an enemy ship during a war sounds like a sound strategy to me. Anyone would think it a passenger liner full of women and children. Anything up to sinking it while at anchor in Argentina would be fine by me.

Any suggestion the UN might have sorted anything once the invasion had taken place is nonsense. The motives were clear and giving the islands up afterwards would have been a guaranteed disaster. It's a shame we let it happen in the first place.

[Norman Verona]

Well, she was warned about removing the Navy presence but ignored the warning. Of course not much is published about that.

 

As for sinking a ship that was leaving the area and there was no war declared by either side, her defence minister didn't think much of it and he resigned over it.

[ajpearson]

As far as I can remember, we just went and attacked at significant loss of life on both sides. We also acted disgarcefully in sinking the Belgrano when she was leaving the area.

The Belgrano was operating in an area known to have heavy Submarine activity, and astute Captain will be manoeuvring all over the place to avoid detection.  there was no gurantee she was leaving the area

[Norman Verona]

AJ, A lot of people showed disquiet at the time. Carrington resigned over it. 

[Moff88]

I see your point about the UN involvement, but can see why we didn't go down that route. However, violating someone's territory by invading is a declaration of war, words don't count for much after that. Leaving the combat area or not is irrelevant. The ship could return and was a threat. To not sink it would be daft from a military standpoint. If it later hit a couple of our ships and cost us the campaign and many lives the decision to not take the opportunity presented would have been horrific. It kept their navy out of play for the rest of the war as well.

[Moff88]

And politicians rarely have the balls or required military mindset for tactical decision making. Its very easy to look at proportionality in hindsight. But sinking it was undoubtedly the correct decision.

[jim_l]

Nice to see a reasonably self moderating discussion amongst intelligent people, what I see in other places disgusts me. 

 

Generally, people admit that what she did had to be done, we were on the way to 'doing a Greece' thirty years before Greece did it, the people of Greece, in particular public sector workers and pensioners, are suffering horribly, and with no way out in sight,  I think she prevented that here, at least on the scale it has happened to Greece.

 

Could it have been done it in a better way, yes, much much more could and should have been done to mitigate the damage in affected communities, the unions could also have been more constructive in this respect,  despise her, maybe, celebrate her death, No.

 

The stance of the trade unions astounds me sometimes, even now, we are spiralling into debt, there is too much of our public sector and not enough of the private sector to finance it, any attempt to solve that problem is met with talk of a general strike, "the country is in trouble but if we don't get our way we will bring it to its knees! "   Do trade union leaders really care about the future of this country? not sure.  Do they care about the size of their power base? most certainly

 

...and...I owe so much to having been a trade union member, decent wages, decent working conditions (without a day on strike!)  they certainly have a role, but it is not running the country. ...

[Moff88]

Sound reasoning there Jim

[jim_l]

Tongue in cheek, and I won't argue over a million here or there....

 

Coming soon to a country near you. 
  6 Million working in the public sector
  14 million state pensioners
  4 million public sector pensioners
  3 million unemployed ,
  3 million claiming long term benefits but not 'unemployed'
  5 million private sector working but not net taxpayers, i.e. not earning enough to pay tax, or paying tax but claiming much of it back in benefits.

1 Trillion pounds in deblts to pay off.

 

20 million private sector employed people required to fund most of the above...

 

      Thought provoking, or should we just panic?

[Moff88]

Unfortunately the NHS is going to have to go or we will go bankrupt.