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.

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Those that are still blaming one person for their misfortune, thirty odd years on, have missed the point – we only have one life, and you’ve just wasted it.

Bruce

I don’t blame Thatcher for my “misfortune”, in reality I fared quite well under Thatcher, but I saw what she did, I saw the attitude she took, I read the warnings that a few lone voices were giving out regarding the longer term effects of her policies, most of those warnings have come true.

The housing rental market has been thrust back almost to the state of Rachman (anyone remember that crook) which in turn has fostered the sky high housing benefits, our public utilities are now just a milch cow for the financiers any concept of providing a service has long gone, public transport one of the worst if not the worst in Europe.

Our only time ever when we were a next exporter of gas and oil, the revenues squandered on unemployment pay rather than developing and modernising ageing industries, because it suited Thatcher to destroy jobs and workers rights, her main target of course being destruction of the Trade Union movement, can’t have common working people holding opinions and having a voice.

Perhaps she isn’t responsible for all our ills, but she made a damn good attempt at it.

:confused: So what you’re proposing is that after they’d invaded was to send down another sub and nuke ’em?

Does everything need spelling out?

Callaghan sent a sub down there while Aregentina was still sabre rattling and announcing a fleet exercise, but Thatcher was to damn busy selling anything not nailed down to take notice when the same sequence began again, or do you imagine that the invasion fleet and air force were assembled and trained up without anyone noticing.

There was plenty of warning, but Thatcher and her clueless government ignored them all.

…….and all BECAUSE of Margaret Thatcher.

Very true.

If the Thatcher government had been half awake the Falklands War would never have happened, inactivity, dithering, indecision gave Argentina the belief that they could get away with an invasion.

Reality, Thatcher was busily announcing cuts and sell offs of the only equipment that could be used over that distance, Argentina went off on a sabre rattling junket, Thatcher announced scrapping the only Naval asset in the area, with no thought of replacement or support.

Contrast that with a similar earlier episode, Callaghan simply sent a nuclear submarine down there on patrol, Argentina decided that their navy would be safer in port, no war very little expense, simple, but not simple enough for Thatcher, reputedly the first thing she requested when told of the invasion was to ready Ark Royal and her compliment of aircraft for service.

Everyone is free to have their view about Margaret Thatcher, but what is now developing with an almost unstoppable momentum is utterly vile.

I am no Thatcher fan, I have however no wish to dance on her grave or throw a party, I would never lower myself to her standards.

Before everyone gets up in arms and whinging about lack of respect etc, please just remind me who set in motion the cult of the individual, everyone out for themselves, greed is good, there is no such thing as society, don’t cry too much when the chickens come home to roost.

I am also fairly certain that much of the hostility stems from the utterly brain dead idea of holding this tacky North Korean style homage to the “Great Leader”, that was always bound to produce hostility.

Let no Tory sycophant ever make a derogatory comment regarding OTT displays from the likes of Jordan (Price) or any of the totalitarian states which still encourage a cult of superior beings.

The entitlement culture is one she would have despised. She believed in the exact opposite. The entitlement culture can be laid at the Blair/Brown door, I fear.

Please check your memory or records, Thatcher created what is now being labelled “welfare dependancy”, Thatcher wasted our greatest assets ever in the form of public utilities and North Sea Oil and Gas revenues.

Yes we had some ageing industries, but bosses had no wish to invest in them, oil and gas revenues should have been used to modernise, restructure or replace certain inefficient industries, instead it was export the work and the jobs waste the money on benefits, remember she was behind the move of many people from unemployment benefit to then sickness benefit, particularly Mobility allowance simply to massage unemployment figures.

She oversaw the biggest increase ever in claimants on benefits, it was worth it because she could destroy jobs and with jobs gone so were the unions and that was her real target, couldn’t allow ordinary people a voice in her world.:mad::mad:

Personally I feel Osborne is a total disgrace using the deaths of 6 children as poilitcal football, but then again I’m not really surprised.

The welfare system didn’t create Philpott, that man has been a violent control freak for a long time, it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference whatever his financial circumstances.

Has the perception of normal people regarding simple accidents changed so much?.

Many, many moons ago crossing a road carrying a crate, I slipped on some ice, went down pretty hard with my knee right on the edge of the kerb. This very neatly snapped my knee cap in two, that simple accident put me out of action for 9 months in total.

It never entered my head to attempt to claim from anyone, because I regarded it as an unlucky accident and frankly would still regard the incident in the same way.

Why do so many now seem to feel that every incident is someone else’s fault and therefore responsible? or has the compo culture taken over completely?.