Thatcher and the Falklands...

[max_tranmere]

I remember seeing a programme about Michael Hesletine once and someone who knew him when they were teenagers said Heseltine wanted his life to unfold as follows: to be a successful businessman in his 20's, a millionaire by his 30's, to be an MP in his 40's, a Cabinet minister by his 50's, and to be Prime Minister by or in his 60's. He got every one of those except the last one.

Had the Tories not have been slaughtered so hard in the 1997 massacre when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, where the Tories got the lowest share of the vote since 1830 and were left with their least number of MP's since 1906, and also his health problems (he had had two heart attacks in the preceeding few years) he may have, later, got the last one aswell.

Heseltine said sometime later that the day after the 1997 thrashing he was called to a meeting with the party manager's and asked if he would stand for leader. He said no - mainly for health reasons, but reading between the lines it also seems he felt they had no chance of winning the subsequent election so there was no chance of him becoming PM, just to be leader of the Opposition for years.

So if the Tories had just lost to the extent they had lost previous elections from the 1940's to the 1970's (out, but it seemed likely they would - and always did - win the next time) and if he wasn't in such bad health, Michael Heseltine may have stood for leader, and later been Prime Minister.

[David Johnson]

I remember that prior to the Falklands War Thatcher was probably slightly less popular with the electorate than Jack the Ripper.

Then the Falklands War came along and she won the next election on a tide of jingoism.

Depressing wasn't the word.

Cheers
D

[RoddersUK]

What you must realise turanhosting is that it matters not one iota in which direction the Belgrano was heading. Ships can turn round.
That ship, old as she was, mounted 15x6inch guns and could have caused havoc with any ship in the RN if she got within 20 miles and began to shell the taskforce.
No RN ship has been armoured since the war built battleships and cruisers during WW2. So, Woodward was spot on to have the ship sunk.
The outcome was, at a stroke, the Argentinian navy steamed back to Argentina and played no more part in the Conflict, and an unknown number of British sailors weren't killed.
It is only the presence of a nuke hunter killer around the Falklands and a Sqn of fighters on the Islands that keeps the Agentinians from invading again.

[RoddersUK]

Ha always was and always will be Robches.

[Bob Singleton]

max_tranmere wrote:

> Didn't most of 'the wets' get sacked though?

If they didn't get sacked, they eventually resigned, though Ken Clarke survived.

> That suggests it
> was her who was calling the shots over them. For some of her
> party to actually force her to do something suggests those
> people called the shots over her.

I never suggested they DID call the shots. You asked who were the thorns in her side. Thatcher, like any party leader, had, at times, to pacify the opponents within her own party, which explains why people like Prior were in the cabinet. In most instances they were given the less important departments. Clarke eventually got two of the "big three" jobs (Home Secretary and then Chancellor), but that was when Major was PM

If anyone "called the shots" over Thatcher (and I'm not suggesting anyone did... just that the following are people whose advice she sought and whose council she relied on) it would have been those even drier than her... the "advisors" and ministers whose ideas she agreed with and who, in some cases such as 'the Mad Monk" Sir Keith Joseph and Ian Gow (until his assasination in 1990), were her "gurus".

As well as these two, you can include her press secretary Bernard Ingham, her foreign policy advisor Charles Powell, her economic advisor Prof Alan Waters, business men such as Ian MacGregor (Coal Board) Lord Hanson and Lord King, Peter Morrison (her PPS) and ministers such as Nick Ridley, Lord Young, Norman Tebbit and Alan Clark. Don't forget her PR gurus, Charles Saatchi and Tim Bell who were also influential.

[RoddersUK]

It seems that you are fixed on your thing against Thatcher rather than the operational safety of the task force.
The decision to sink that ship was correct and I and others couldn't give a stuff in what direction it was heading or where it was in regard to the taskforce..
Boom, one ship sumk and the rest scuttled back to safety.
Result for the taskforce.

[max_tranmere]

Interesting. I am familiar with a lot of those, but will look the others up. Most politicans stop rocking the boat if their leader offers them more of the things they care about the most - namely promotion and more power. It largely worked for Thatcher, it didn't work for Major.

[max_tranmere]

I heard the Argentine Army was a conscript Army and many of those who went down with the Belgrano were drafted in and a lot were very young. Their bodies are stil there under the water today. It is very sad, but we weren't the aggressor in that war.

To quote a line from a song by Pink Floyd, which was written about the Falklands War:

"Galtieri took the Union Jack, and Maggie sent a cruiser to make him give it back."

That power mad arsehole wanted to retain his office, he lost the war, and his office and ended up in jail.

[Sam Slater]

When it comes to the Falklands war, and the rights and wrongs of it all, I always thought it mightily hypocritical of some Spaniards, who've claimed someone else's land, forced the religious conversion of the indigenous locals upon the threat of slavery or death, try and take the moral high ground and moan about another old colonial power keeping hold of some claimed land.

Let's support the emancipation of the indigenous tribes from the old European masters, in Argentina, first. Then they might be in a better position to criticise us.