No I think you cannot reconcile that the country is holding the funeral for a Baroness who served three terms -took the country to war to defend sovereign territory and to many restored Britain to a respected nation rather than a joke! Your fixation with politics is just that – the funeral will be different things to different people . To many in the Armed Forces it will be seen as a fitting ceremony to someone who took us into a justified war .

You are perfectly entitled to your opinion of what Thatcher achieved or did not achieve, needless to say I don’t share your views.

She was an elected politician, no more no less, she was not some supreme deity, she was not an infallible potentate, are we now to elevate every politician or Prime Minister to god like status,? are we to revive an Emperor cult,? why in the name of sanity are we enduring this glorification of a politician who was by no means majorly popular?.

I find the whole pantomime to be degrading to the country, have we fallen so far that we need to put on a false show were the adoring public can pay their respects to the “great leader”, tonight on BBC news there was film of the rehearsal for the charade in London, there was also film of some parade in honour of the great leader in North Korea. The similarities were frightening, loads of military everywhere “spontaneous” applause ringing out during a structured organised homage.

If there had been any public call for this performance I would shut up, but there isn’t, just a Tory jam fest, before you say it I would find it even more unpalatable if this had been a Labour promoted junket.

Roll on Wednesday and get this whole sorry farago out of the way.

Surprising though it may sound to you I hope there is no over active demonstration, for me the perfect response would be for the streets of London to be empty and deserted.

Re 414

Waco

If we and other countries had practised the Thatcher virtues of thrift and good housekeeping, the global economy’ crash of 2008 would quite probably never have happened.

It is what happens if, over a period of time, a country spends much more than it earns particularly on non productive State administration and enterprises.

Close down all UK manufacturing and buy everything in from abroad, leave us completely subject to whims and prices of other countries as to essential supplies and just about everything else.

Sounds like good economic sense, leave us totally reliant on the finance sector, who are of course thoroughly trustworthy, honourable people.:rolleyes:

“Nine elderly people died every hour from cold-related illnesses last winter against a background of soaring energy bills.

Official figures show the number of deaths linked to cold over the four-month period reached 25,400 in England and Wales, plus 2,760 in Scotland.”

This Charlie is quoted from…..the Daily Mail….

Meaningless to good Tories, just so long as the “top” minds in business can rake in another £million or two and back hand some to the Tory party, the deaths of large numbers of poor or elderly people is of no concern, in fact probably regarded as a saving.

Ah! I have obviously misunderstood history and the events I lived through.

So it was the military who took the decision to re-take the Falklands and the Prime Minister really had very little to do with it at all? I seem to recall reading a slightly different version of events with military leaders pretty much telling the PM and her ministers that it probably couldn’t be done. Just goes to show how history gets skewed, Silver Fox, so thank you for putting us right on that. Nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher, then.

Sarcasm does not become you, what is it with this adoration of the blessed Thatcher, any decisions taken at a particular time are obviously taken, or should be taken by the incumbent government.

I think many should take a step back and look again, the Thatcher government was at that time engaged in the biggest cut backs ever in all military spending, a few months later we wouldn’t have had enough naval fire power to take The Isle of Whight, yet all we hear and see is the great resolve of a great leader, she was actually extremely lucky that events panned out as they did.

As I’ve said before, what saddens me most about the Falklands crisis is that the central message, a democracy standing-up to unprovoked aggression from a brutal military dictatorship, has seemingly been lost amid the party-political bickering about whether we should be congratulating or blaming ourselves for the handling of the crisis (depending on you political allegiance). Typically British!

Nothing to do with political allegiance, with the invasion a fact and the decision to liberate the Falklands, I fully supported our military and would never decry in any way their achievements in conducting a campaign so far from home, with very little in the way of reserves or back up, this was handled by the military, ministers at all levels had very little to do with this success yet milked it for all it was worth, ministers were the ones who failed in advice to government, ministers were the only failures in the war, but our military paid with their lives, let’s not forget that either.

It wouldn’t be the first time that diplomatic dialogue had been used by an aggressor as a distraction from military action.

Irrespective of ‘warnings a plenty’ you have to concede that the Argentine Junta was trying to keep the invasion of the Falklands secret; not only does your argument require the British government to be incompetent but it also requires the Argentine government to be somewhat incompetent too.

Thank goodness…..at least we don’t have to have that discussion!!! 😀

Incompetence was king as far as issues in and around the Falklands were concerned, damn good thing it wasn’t the USSR planning an invasion, the Warsaw Pact armies would have been camped on Salisbury Plain by the time anyone woke up, if the same awareness had been employed.

Regarding The Falklands this country was sending out a very mixed and weak message, commitment to the Falklands was very low and most certainly gave Argentina reason to believe that taking the islands was feasible and definitely doable.

Prior to the invasion I very much doubt that there would have been more than token resistance in the UK towards handing over the Falklands, either totally or on a shared basis.

If if was a deterrent, then it did not have a lasting effect, because of course they tried again. In fact by sending only one vessel, mostly underwater, it could be said that it was a sign of weakness and vacilation.

How come that the Argentines knew all about the submarine, but that it was kept secret from our own people? Why would Callaghan hide the fact that there was a threat? Surely if we had known about the extent of the threat, he would have been confident that the British public would be with him on a visible response?

So, weak response and hiding it from the public, sounds typical Callaghan.

Steven

Argentina knew it was there because Calaghan told them it was there, in fact he went one better, as the Argentinian Navy was ostensibly holding an exercise he asked did they wish our submarine to participate, or failing that at least be advised as to where the sub was operating, couldn’t have some innocent surface vessel getting caught up in a live fire exercise could we.

It was no secret to anyone.

Silver Fox – if there was plenty of warning and her government chose to ignore it how come none of this made the press before the war and how come U.S intelligence sources in the region didn’t relay this information to the U.K ? Or is it just that there is no evidence to support this and saying that a nuclear submarine should have been dispatched to the region is easy to say after the event?

There was plenty in the press, in fact our press was full of discussion as to should we attempt to negotiate a deal with Argentina, there were already many services to the islands run through Argentina and there was a major school of thought along the lines of should we continue to fund the Falklands?, did we actually want to keep them?, warnings a plenty about troop assembly and readiness, simply the Thatcher government read the warnings and shrugged their shoulders believing naively that it wouldn’t happen, wasn’t it Knox who resigned immediately because in the face of all the evidence, he still made the recomendation to take no action.

It really was that simple, that is why there is one school of thought along the lines that Thatcher wanted the conflict just as much as the Argentine junta, simply because both governments were facing unrest and were deeply unpopular, I don’t subscribe to that theory because she can not have known the potential outcome to that strategy.

The Argentine invasion of The Falklands must rank among the best know secret attacks ever.