defeat – The Thatcher Crisis Years

Papers just released under the 30 year rule show that Thatcher was completely amazed when Argentina invaded the Falklands. I remember seeing the first news of the war broadcast on ITN and it was a bit surreal. There was the footage of Argentine ships heading towards the islands with some admiral on deck with his binoculars.

We look back on the war from the post-1982 world where the Iron Lady looks utterly resolved to defeat the damned Argies. Don’t believe a word of it. The government was caught in headlights. Foreign minister Lord Carrington resigned. There had been warnings about Argentina’s intentions since 1977 and the British embassy in Buenos Aires had been alerting London for months. But when Argentina struck – the Tories initially reeled.

Students of the Thatcher years may wish to investigate what the Tories would have done to the Falkland islanders if the war hadn’t happened. President Reagan and the US establishment wanted Britain to reach some kind of accommodation with the then military dictatorship in Argentina. In those days, the US had installed anti-communists military juntas in Chile, Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America – no talk of democracy back then!

Also, the idea of the British sending troops into the Americas made many in Washington feel a little queasy – wasn’t this what 1776 had been all about stopping?

Here’s some of the stuff that came out during the Falklands War from my extensive archive…

Students said view of Thatcher unchanged

In the 1979 general election, a local Liberal campaigner came round to our family house and as a chatty, politically obsessed 15 year old, I got into a long conversation with her. She was convinced that the electorate would reject the right wing economics being proposed by Margaret Thatcher as too extreme. Most people, she continued, didn’t wish for a rupture with the post-war consensus – they just wanted it to work better.

I was very sceptical. Pessimistic even. I had no doubt as a political swot even by that tender age that Labour was doomed. My school was trending heavily Tory. At a mock election, the Labour candidate was treated like a leper or pariah. The Liberal was jeered and sheepishly exited the school stage as if expecting to be lynched. The Tory, by marked contrast, was cheered to the rafters. That told me everything I needed to know.

But – Jim Callaghan fought a brave campaign. And even managed to narrow the Tory lead. However….it was too little, too late.

Tag: defeat

The Falklands – as the war was seen back in 1982

1979 General Election – James Callaghan fights back