The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Starmer thought it was appropriate to serve in Corbyn's government, only the public stopped that from happening.
If you want Corbyn and associations cancelled, then those who felt it appropriate to serve in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet should retire from politics. That would be a good start.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Angie would love to dig her up and burn her at the stake! It narks them that she achieved what none of them have got near in the 'Peoples' party'.
The destruction of great swathes of the north?
It's true we've failed dismally there, but you know what they say - horses for courses.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Hahaha. You would love people to believe that those years could be forgotten. Not a chance.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Yes, rather similar. It wasn't a winning strategy for Labour to keep bringing up Thatcher. And it won't be a winning strategy for the Tories to keep bringing up Corbyn. Even less so, actually, as at least Thatcher held power whereas Corbyn didn't.
I think you are spot on here. It seems to me there are two sets of voters in play for the next election. Red wallers and the give us a better choice than Boris v Corbyn next time brigade.
Boths groups really dislike Corbyn, but all banging on him about does is remind the latter group that Labour have changed and the Tories have not.
Noticeable that all the lefties on here think it’s foolish, misguided and silly for the Tories “to bang on about Corbyn”
Because, of course, you all want what’s best for the Tory party, electorally
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
I'm no expert in this and it is irrelevant anyway because #hyufd is clearly bonkers in thinking we would nuke Argentina, but would it even have been possible then to do so from a sub to an unexpected target. And if possible has @HYUFD considered what Russia, China, USA would have done if we randomly fired an ICBM towards the Americas. I mine possible global destruction over a little lightly populated island.
Possible? Yes. Wise or ever on the table? No, for all the reasons you and many of us have said.
Oh and one more. In 1982 there were WWII veterans in Government and senior military roles. The chances of them supporting delivering a nuclear attack in this way? Zero.
The US launched an atomic bomb to end WW2 in Japan against a non nuclear armed nation, it delivered the desired result
You don’t see why that’s different do you?
The USA would otherwise have invaded Japan while the Falklands War was to defend the British Overseas Territory of the Falklands after the Argentine invasion not to invade Argentina? (Even if Japan had done plenty of invading itself)
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Angie would love to dig her up and burn her at the stake! It narks them that she achieved what none of them have got near in the 'Peoples' party'.
The destruction of great swathes of the north?
It's true we've failed dismally there, but you know what they say - horses for courses.
"The destruction of great swathes of the north?"
Oh, grow up. If you want to see 'destruction', look at what is happening in eastern Ukraine.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
More pertinently, wouldn’t condemn a killing by Russia in the UK, involving a chemical weapon, as far back as four years ago this month.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
And the current leader meekly worked in his Shadow Cabinet....
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
I'm no expert in this and it is irrelevant anyway because #hyufd is clearly bonkers in thinking we would nuke Argentina, but would it even have been possible then to do so from a sub to an unexpected target. And if possible has @HYUFD considered what Russia, China, USA would have done if we randomly fired an ICBM towards the Americas. I mine possible global destruction over a little lightly populated island.
Possible? Yes. Wise or ever on the table? No, for all the reasons you and many of us have said.
Oh and one more. In 1982 there were WWII veterans in Government and senior military roles. The chances of them supporting delivering a nuclear attack in this way? Zero.
The US launched an atomic bomb to end WW2 in Japan against a non nuclear armed nation, it delivered the desired result
If we had nuked even an Argentinian base manned by three guys and a penguin, we would have been the most reviled nation on Earth.
So what, we would still have defended our territory regardless and been feared too.
Better to be feared and reviled over how far we will go to defend ourselves than loved but not respected and seen as weak and unable to defend ourselves and our overseas territories
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Yes, rather similar. It wasn't a winning strategy for Labour to keep bringing up Thatcher. And it won't be a winning strategy for the Tories to keep bringing up Corbyn. Even less so, actually, as at least Thatcher held power whereas Corbyn didn't.
I think you are spot on here. It seems to me there are two sets of voters in play for the next election. Red wallers and the give us a better choice than Boris v Corbyn next time brigade.
Boths groups really dislike Corbyn, but all banging on him about does is remind the latter group that Labour have changed and the Tories have not.
Noticeable that all the lefties on here think it’s foolish, misguided and silly for the Tories “to bang on about Corbyn”
Because, of course, you all want what’s best for the Tory party, electorally
Not really sure I am a lefty, my favourite politician would be Ken Clarke but whatever.
Dominic Raab's #pmqs attack on Angela Rayner and Labour for Jeremy Corbyn's stance on Russia and defence foreshadows Tories' plans for the next election. Senior Labour figures talk of "long Corbyn" worries - more to come in an updated version of #brokenheartlands later this year. https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1504068980574760960
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
Thankfully we still had a runway at Ascension, and seventeen barely-serviceable V-bombers, for one of the most complex and daring Air Force missions of all time.
The shortage of carriers is why I believe we need several small helicopter/vertical take-off aircraft carriers - like 9 or 10 of them. There is no point in a great lumbering hulk that we don't have adequate escort ships for anyway.
No way we could afford that. Not least because the escort demand would be even greater!
Also the reason for large deck carriers is sortie rates. The invincible class was never really designed for carrier Ops - we bastardised them towards it in the end but then we’re anti submarine platforms with a bit of local air defence for themselves. That remains true for all smaller classes.
I am very much a layman, and I think you might have missed a word after 'we're', so I don't really understand your point.
Sorry, ducking autocorrect! I never know why it prefers “we’re” to “were”.
Should read “they were”. Basically we forced them to act as carriers by the 90s because we didn’t need so much anti sun activity in the North Atlantic, but the size of deck is what limits sortie rates, and it frustrated us, which is why we went bigger on the replacements. And there’s the old maxim that fresh air is free and steel is cheap, so going a bit bigger doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Could sortie rates be improved by part two of my cunning plan, to bring back the Harriers?
*Gets coat*
The Harrier's shortcomings are one of the reasons the QE class is so ludicrously big.
On Invincible we could generate another 8-10 sorties per day usually constrained by technical availability of aircraft which was quite poor. Meanwhile a Nimitz could enerate 120 sorties in 12 hours and that stung. In order to be taken seriously by the USN the RN specified an absolutely ludicrous 150/day sortie rate for the QE class. This is the reason they are so fucking big and expensive.
However it quickly became obvious that there would never be enough aircraft bought to hit that sortie rate so we've ended up with ships that are completely over-sized for the available aviation assets.
As always any attempt to evaluate the QE class in terms of military capability is pointless. That's not what they are for; they serve chiefly as a totem of national virility.
We have useless nukes as a totem of national virility, now two useless aircraft carriers as symobols of national virility. Can a fleet of tumescent airships be far away?
Why does the RAF have both Eurofighter Typhoons and American F-35 Lightnings?
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
And the current leader meekly worked in his Shadow Cabinet....
Fundamentally, it is about the parties' messaging at the next election.
Labour's message will be: Labour has changed. Labour is ready for government The Cons' message will be: Labour hasn't really changed. Behind the leader it is still the same bunch of Britain-hating, London-based cranks and weirdos who don't share your values
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
People overdo both (and the creepy Tory obsession with Thatcher too, though it may be my imagination but it feels like people are starting to dial both down), but Corbyn was Leader only 2 and a bit years ago - it doesn't mean Tories don't fallback on the 'But Corbyn' line too often as a distraction, they clearly do, but it is more likely to be relevant from time to time at least.
Corbo isn't even a Labour MP FFS.
Right - a highly relevant factor when people seek to imply Starmer and co must be the same as him because they served under him. But that doesn't mean any mention of them backing him is always unreasonable, it was very recent. It just cannot be pretended things have not moved on which counter that point, so it cannot be relied upon as a get of jail free card.
It's not very relevant, but nor is it entirely irrelevant. It's like how Godwin's law doesn't mean you can never bring up Nazis.
The challenge is to identify the 10% of times it is relevant from the 90% where it isn't. I think I'll be able to do that so I'm pretty relaxed on this one.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leadWeer).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
You've forgotten that mere weeks ago you were bending over to be joyfully sodomised by anti-woke strongman Putin, so sauce for the goose etc.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
Thankfully we still had a runway at Ascension, and seventeen barely-serviceable V-bombers, for one of the most complex and daring Air Force missions of all time.
The shortage of carriers is why I believe we need several small helicopter/vertical take-off aircraft carriers - like 9 or 10 of them. There is no point in a great lumbering hulk that we don't have adequate escort ships for anyway.
No way we could afford that. Not least because the escort demand would be even greater!
Also the reason for large deck carriers is sortie rates. The invincible class was never really designed for carrier Ops - we bastardised them towards it in the end but then we’re anti submarine platforms with a bit of local air defence for themselves. That remains true for all smaller classes.
I am very much a layman, and I think you might have missed a word after 'we're', so I don't really understand your point.
Sorry, ducking autocorrect! I never know why it prefers “we’re” to “were”.
Should read “they were”. Basically we forced them to act as carriers by the 90s because we didn’t need so much anti sun activity in the North Atlantic, but the size of deck is what limits sortie rates, and it frustrated us, which is why we went bigger on the replacements. And there’s the old maxim that fresh air is free and steel is cheap, so going a bit bigger doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Could sortie rates be improved by part two of my cunning plan, to bring back the Harriers?
*Gets coat*
The Harrier's shortcomings are one of the reasons the QE class is so ludicrously big.
On Invincible we could generate another 8-10 sorties per day usually constrained by technical availability of aircraft which was quite poor. Meanwhile a Nimitz could enerate 120 sorties in 12 hours and that stung. In order to be taken seriously by the USN the RN specified an absolutely ludicrous 150/day sortie rate for the QE class. This is the reason they are so fucking big and expensive.
However it quickly became obvious that there would never be enough aircraft bought to hit that sortie rate so we've ended up with ships that are completely over-sized for the available aviation assets.
As always any attempt to evaluate the QE class in terms of military capability is pointless. That's not what they are for; they serve chiefly as a totem of national virility.
We have useless nukes as a totem of national virility, now two useless aircraft carriers as symobols of national virility. Can a fleet of tumescent airships be far away?
Why does the RAF have both Eurofighter Typhoons and American F-35 Lightnings?
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
You couldn't put Eurofighter on a carrier, for a start. Any carrier.
If defence spending gets increased, then a simple method of increasing air power will be continuing the F-35 buy.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Yes, rather similar. It wasn't a winning strategy for Labour to keep bringing up Thatcher. And it won't be a winning strategy for the Tories to keep bringing up Corbyn. Even less so, actually, as at least Thatcher held power whereas Corbyn didn't.
I think you are spot on here. It seems to me there are two sets of voters in play for the next election. Red wallers and the give us a better choice than Boris v Corbyn next time brigade.
Boths groups really dislike Corbyn, but all banging on him about does is remind the latter group that Labour have changed and the Tories have not.
Noticeable that all the lefties on here think it’s foolish, misguided and silly for the Tories “to bang on about Corbyn”
Because, of course, you all want what’s best for the Tory party, electorally
Mind you Corbyn was only really an electoral asset for the Tories in 2019 (and getting Brexit done was a big part of that victory too).
In 2017 let us not forget Corbyn won more seats than Miliband in 2015 and Brown in 2010 and the biggest Labour voteshare since Blair in 2001 and May needed the DUP's support to keep the Tories in power
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
Thankfully we still had a runway at Ascension, and seventeen barely-serviceable V-bombers, for one of the most complex and daring Air Force missions of all time.
The shortage of carriers is why I believe we need several small helicopter/vertical take-off aircraft carriers - like 9 or 10 of them. There is no point in a great lumbering hulk that we don't have adequate escort ships for anyway.
No way we could afford that. Not least because the escort demand would be even greater!
Also the reason for large deck carriers is sortie rates. The invincible class was never really designed for carrier Ops - we bastardised them towards it in the end but then we’re anti submarine platforms with a bit of local air defence for themselves. That remains true for all smaller classes.
I am very much a layman, and I think you might have missed a word after 'we're', so I don't really understand your point.
Sorry, ducking autocorrect! I never know why it prefers “we’re” to “were”.
Should read “they were”. Basically we forced them to act as carriers by the 90s because we didn’t need so much anti sun activity in the North Atlantic, but the size of deck is what limits sortie rates, and it frustrated us, which is why we went bigger on the replacements. And there’s the old maxim that fresh air is free and steel is cheap, so going a bit bigger doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Could sortie rates be improved by part two of my cunning plan, to bring back the Harriers?
*Gets coat*
The Harrier's shortcomings are one of the reasons the QE class is so ludicrously big.
On Invincible we could generate another 8-10 sorties per day usually constrained by technical availability of aircraft which was quite poor. Meanwhile a Nimitz could enerate 120 sorties in 12 hours and that stung. In order to be taken seriously by the USN the RN specified an absolutely ludicrous 150/day sortie rate for the QE class. This is the reason they are so fucking big and expensive.
However it quickly became obvious that there would never be enough aircraft bought to hit that sortie rate so we've ended up with ships that are completely over-sized for the available aviation assets.
As always any attempt to evaluate the QE class in terms of military capability is pointless. That's not what they are for; they serve chiefly as a totem of national virility.
We have useless nukes as a totem of national virility, now two useless aircraft carriers as symobols of national virility. Can a fleet of tumescent airships be far away?
Why does the RAF have both Eurofighter Typhoons and American F-35 Lightnings?
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
You couldn't put Eurofighter on a carrier, for a start. Any carrier.
If defence spending gets increased, then a simple method of increasing air power will be continuing the F-35 buy.
If the whole of the West puts in new orders for F-35s, there’s a small chance they might actually be able to get the marginal unit cost somewhere within the same order of magnitude it was supposed to be when first proposed!
We made tactical peace with Stalin so as to defeat Hitler. Dealing with Iran to thwart Putin is small beer by comparison
It does sound like peace is near. Hard to believe given the horrors of these weeks. Please let it be so
If peace arrives - if if if - it’s hard to see Putin surviving in the medium term
In your eyes, and the big majority of posters on here today, our new best buddies the Iranians have never did no harm? What are they now, the Dukes of Hazard?
Are we not missing the lesson to be learnt, just shrugging and excusing reactionary policy as realpolitik?
But your post actually sums up beautifully why Boris could be being reactionary and stupid and making mistakes - if Putin is replaced by a better government, the one who opposed this war, our buying Russian gas and oil is the win win win win scenario you errantly mentioned. Are we at war with the Russian people after Putin is gone, at war with those who opposed him, or supporting them and making their government a success?
Yes. Yes of course we will remain at war with them, friends with our new Iranian allies and at war with the post Putin Russia is exactly the position of Boris’ government as of today.
The lesson for today is, If you are so happy to support the bad guys in this world doing bad things, you have to be happy being the bastard doing bad things too.
That's utter garbage.
No of course we will not remain the same thing indefinitely. Churchill and Stalin is a good example, as he said If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Hitler was the greater evil in World War II, but once the War ended Churchill and the West didn't simply remain good friends and allies with Stalin. Even before he returned as PM, Churchill was immediately warning the West about the threats of the Soviet Union. Once the 'greater evil' was dealt with, our erstwhile allies became our greater evil themselves.
Realpolitik means dealing with the Iranians today because Putin is the greater evil, but once Putin is gone, we will have to deal with the world as it is then, not the world as it is today.
Iran has an opportunity at the moment to come in from the cold. If they behave nicely they can stay in and reintegrate ultimately into the civilised world. If they don't, they will be ostracised again before long.
Utter garbage to say other foreign policy options are available for us, other than the one that makes us friends of the bad guys and so the bad guys too? Of course you are defending it, your in the same shameless ideological headspace as this - but the weakness of your argument for us becoming the bad guys through partnership with bad guys is how you try to justify it is absolutely necessary in this situation. It’s not. My foreign policy position is it wasn’t absolutely necessary today to pay the Iranian ransom in return for oil. We have hared into this where a tortoise would have been smarter.
That’s why my position isn’t garbage, yours is. The definition of garbage foreign policy here is YOU are now simultaneously funding and arming both sides in the Yemen conflict, in order to help our war on the Russian people.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
Yezhov was, btw, as small as he looks there - just a whisker under 5' tall.
We made tactical peace with Stalin so as to defeat Hitler. Dealing with Iran to thwart Putin is small beer by comparison
It does sound like peace is near. Hard to believe given the horrors of these weeks. Please let it be so
If peace arrives - if if if - it’s hard to see Putin surviving in the medium term
In your eyes, and the big majority of posters on here today, our new best buddies the Iranians have never did no harm? What are they now, the Dukes of Hazard?
Are we not missing the lesson to be learnt, just shrugging and excusing reactionary policy as realpolitik?
But your post actually sums up beautifully why Boris could be being reactionary and stupid and making mistakes - if Putin is replaced by a better government, the one who opposed this war, our buying Russian gas and oil is the win win win win scenario you errantly mentioned. Are we at war with the Russian people after Putin is gone, at war with those who opposed him, or supporting them and making their government a success?
Yes. Yes of course we will remain at war with them, friends with our new Iranian allies and at war with the post Putin Russia is exactly the position of Boris’ government as of today.
The lesson for today is, If you are so happy to support the bad guys in this world doing bad things, you have to be happy being the bastard doing bad things too.
That's utter garbage.
No of course we will not remain the same thing indefinitely. Churchill and Stalin is a good example, as he said If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Hitler was the greater evil in World War II, but once the War ended Churchill and the West didn't simply remain good friends and allies with Stalin. Even before he returned as PM, Churchill was immediately warning the West about the threats of the Soviet Union. Once the 'greater evil' was dealt with, our erstwhile allies became our greater evil themselves.
Realpolitik means dealing with the Iranians today because Putin is the greater evil, but once Putin is gone, we will have to deal with the world as it is then, not the world as it is today.
Iran has an opportunity at the moment to come in from the cold. If they behave nicely they can stay in and reintegrate ultimately into the civilised world. If they don't, they will be ostracised again before long.
Utter garbage to say other foreign policy options are available for us, other than the one that makes us friends of the bad guys and so the bad guys too? Of course you are defending it, your in the same shameless ideological headspace as this - but the weakness of your argument for us becoming the bad guys through partnership with bad guys is how you try to justify it is absolutely necessary in this situation. It’s not. My foreign policy position is it wasn’t absolutely necessary today to pay the Iranian ransom in return for oil. We have hared into this where a tortoise would have been smarter.
That’s why my position isn’t garbage, yours is. The definition of garbage foreign policy here is YOU are now simultaneously funding and arming both sides in the Yemen conflict, in order to help our war on the Russian people.
We have hardly hared into it, we have owed them the money since 1979.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a very tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We made tactical peace with Stalin so as to defeat Hitler. Dealing with Iran to thwart Putin is small beer by comparison
It does sound like peace is near. Hard to believe given the horrors of these weeks. Please let it be so
If peace arrives - if if if - it’s hard to see Putin surviving in the medium term
In your eyes, and the big majority of posters on here today, our new best buddies the Iranians have never did no harm? What are they now, the Dukes of Hazard?
Are we not missing the lesson to be learnt, just shrugging and excusing reactionary policy as realpolitik?
But your post actually sums up beautifully why Boris could be being reactionary and stupid and making mistakes - if Putin is replaced by a better government, the one who opposed this war, our buying Russian gas and oil is the win win win win scenario you errantly mentioned. Are we at war with the Russian people after Putin is gone, at war with those who opposed him, or supporting them and making their government a success?
Yes. Yes of course we will remain at war with them, friends with our new Iranian allies and at war with the post Putin Russia is exactly the position of Boris’ government as of today.
The lesson for today is, If you are so happy to support the bad guys in this world doing bad things, you have to be happy being the bastard doing bad things too.
That's utter garbage.
No of course we will not remain the same thing indefinitely. Churchill and Stalin is a good example, as he said If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Hitler was the greater evil in World War II, but once the War ended Churchill and the West didn't simply remain good friends and allies with Stalin. Even before he returned as PM, Churchill was immediately warning the West about the threats of the Soviet Union. Once the 'greater evil' was dealt with, our erstwhile allies became our greater evil themselves.
Realpolitik means dealing with the Iranians today because Putin is the greater evil, but once Putin is gone, we will have to deal with the world as it is then, not the world as it is today.
Iran has an opportunity at the moment to come in from the cold. If they behave nicely they can stay in and reintegrate ultimately into the civilised world. If they don't, they will be ostracised again before long.
Utter garbage to say other foreign policy options are available for us, other than the one that makes us friends of the bad guys and so the bad guys too? Of course you are defending it, your in the same shameless ideological headspace as this - but the weakness of your argument for us becoming the bad guys through partnership with bad guys is how you try to justify it is absolutely necessary in this situation. It’s not. My foreign policy position is it wasn’t absolutely necessary today to pay the Iranian ransom in return for oil. We have hared into this where a tortoise would have been smarter.
That’s why my position isn’t garbage, yours is. The definition of garbage foreign policy here is YOU are now simultaneously funding and arming both sides in the Yemen conflict, in order to help our war on the Russian people.
It’s called Realpolitik.
Western nations still need a lot of oil, the price is rising thanks to Putin, and nothing we do or don’t do in the Middle East is going to stop Sunni and Shia continuing their centuries-long fight.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Angie would love to dig her up and burn her at the stake! It narks them that she achieved what none of them have got near in the 'Peoples' party'.
The destruction of great swathes of the north?
It's true we've failed dismally there, but you know what they say - horses for courses.
"The destruction of great swathes of the north?"
Oh, grow up. If you want to see 'destruction', look at what is happening in eastern Ukraine.
Not sure it's 'grown up' to judge the politics of the 1980s in Britain by comparison to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. By that token every single thing Mrs T did was wonderful - including the destruction of great swathes of the north. Ditto all our other post-war PMs. Fabulous bunch!
I find that I can quite quickly accommodate myself to the winners of an election even if I have invested in the losing side. It's democracy.
There have been two exceptions.
One, obviously, was Trump. I was, and remain, horrified that he won. That has permanently changed my attitude to the Republicans.
The other was Corbyn. Alright, he didn't win. But he did horribly well in 2017. An awful lot of water will have to flow under the bridge for me, so far as Labour are concerned. Even though, as it happens, I don't mind Starmer at all.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
Thankfully we still had a runway at Ascension, and seventeen barely-serviceable V-bombers, for one of the most complex and daring Air Force missions of all time.
The shortage of carriers is why I believe we need several small helicopter/vertical take-off aircraft carriers - like 9 or 10 of them. There is no point in a great lumbering hulk that we don't have adequate escort ships for anyway.
No way we could afford that. Not least because the escort demand would be even greater!
Also the reason for large deck carriers is sortie rates. The invincible class was never really designed for carrier Ops - we bastardised them towards it in the end but then we’re anti submarine platforms with a bit of local air defence for themselves. That remains true for all smaller classes.
I am very much a layman, and I think you might have missed a word after 'we're', so I don't really understand your point.
Sorry, ducking autocorrect! I never know why it prefers “we’re” to “were”.
Should read “they were”. Basically we forced them to act as carriers by the 90s because we didn’t need so much anti sun activity in the North Atlantic, but the size of deck is what limits sortie rates, and it frustrated us, which is why we went bigger on the replacements. And there’s the old maxim that fresh air is free and steel is cheap, so going a bit bigger doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Could sortie rates be improved by part two of my cunning plan, to bring back the Harriers?
*Gets coat*
The Harrier's shortcomings are one of the reasons the QE class is so ludicrously big.
On Invincible we could generate another 8-10 sorties per day usually constrained by technical availability of aircraft which was quite poor. Meanwhile a Nimitz could enerate 120 sorties in 12 hours and that stung. In order to be taken seriously by the USN the RN specified an absolutely ludicrous 150/day sortie rate for the QE class. This is the reason they are so fucking big and expensive.
However it quickly became obvious that there would never be enough aircraft bought to hit that sortie rate so we've ended up with ships that are completely over-sized for the available aviation assets.
As always any attempt to evaluate the QE class in terms of military capability is pointless. That's not what they are for; they serve chiefly as a totem of national virility.
We have useless nukes as a totem of national virility, now two useless aircraft carriers as symobols of national virility. Can a fleet of tumescent airships be far away?
Why does the RAF have both Eurofighter Typhoons and American F-35 Lightnings?
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
You couldn't put Eurofighter on a carrier, for a start. Any carrier.
If defence spending gets increased, then a simple method of increasing air power will be continuing the F-35 buy.
I see. Also the UK has the Tempest program coming, about which there is much hype. Let's hope its not the Crossrail of righter plane world.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
Yezhov was, btw, as small as he looks there - just a whisker under 5' tall.
Little Blackberry was JVS's pet name for him. Shame he was liquidated earlyish on, could have been a valuable addition to the cast of grotesques of Death of Stalin.
We made tactical peace with Stalin so as to defeat Hitler. Dealing with Iran to thwart Putin is small beer by comparison
It does sound like peace is near. Hard to believe given the horrors of these weeks. Please let it be so
If peace arrives - if if if - it’s hard to see Putin surviving in the medium term
In your eyes, and the big majority of posters on here today, our new best buddies the Iranians have never did no harm? What are they now, the Dukes of Hazard?
Are we not missing the lesson to be learnt, just shrugging and excusing reactionary policy as realpolitik?
But your post actually sums up beautifully why Boris could be being reactionary and stupid and making mistakes - if Putin is replaced by a better government, the one who opposed this war, our buying Russian gas and oil is the win win win win scenario you errantly mentioned. Are we at war with the Russian people after Putin is gone, at war with those who opposed him, or supporting them and making their government a success?
Yes. Yes of course we will remain at war with them, friends with our new Iranian allies and at war with the post Putin Russia is exactly the position of Boris’ government as of today.
The lesson for today is, If you are so happy to support the bad guys in this world doing bad things, you have to be happy being the bastard doing bad things too.
That's utter garbage.
No of course we will not remain the same thing indefinitely. Churchill and Stalin is a good example, as he said If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Hitler was the greater evil in World War II, but once the War ended Churchill and the West didn't simply remain good friends and allies with Stalin. Even before he returned as PM, Churchill was immediately warning the West about the threats of the Soviet Union. Once the 'greater evil' was dealt with, our erstwhile allies became our greater evil themselves.
Realpolitik means dealing with the Iranians today because Putin is the greater evil, but once Putin is gone, we will have to deal with the world as it is then, not the world as it is today.
Iran has an opportunity at the moment to come in from the cold. If they behave nicely they can stay in and reintegrate ultimately into the civilised world. If they don't, they will be ostracised again before long.
Utter garbage to say other foreign policy options are available for us, other than the one that makes us friends of the bad guys and so the bad guys too? Of course you are defending it, your in the same shameless ideological headspace as this - but the weakness of your argument for us becoming the bad guys through partnership with bad guys is how you try to justify it is absolutely necessary in this situation. It’s not. My foreign policy position is it wasn’t absolutely necessary today to pay the Iranian ransom in return for oil. We have hared into this where a tortoise would have been smarter.
That’s why my position isn’t garbage, yours is. The definition of garbage foreign policy here is YOU are now simultaneously funding and arming both sides in the Yemen conflict, in order to help our war on the Russian people.
It’s called Realpolitik.
Western nations still need a lot of oil, the price is rising thanks to Putin, and nothing we do or don’t do in the Middle East is going to stop Sunni and Shia continuing their centuries-long fight.
Also, a less hostile Iran would be quite a prize - for the West
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Dominic Raab's #pmqs attack on Angela Rayner and Labour for Jeremy Corbyn's stance on Russia and defence foreshadows Tories' plans for the next election. Senior Labour figures talk of "long Corbyn" worries - more to come in an updated version of #brokenheartlands later this year. https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1504068980574760960
Whilst I don't agree with the policy, I find the term 'Long Corbyn' amusing.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
Thankfully we still had a runway at Ascension, and seventeen barely-serviceable V-bombers, for one of the most complex and daring Air Force missions of all time.
The shortage of carriers is why I believe we need several small helicopter/vertical take-off aircraft carriers - like 9 or 10 of them. There is no point in a great lumbering hulk that we don't have adequate escort ships for anyway.
No way we could afford that. Not least because the escort demand would be even greater!
Also the reason for large deck carriers is sortie rates. The invincible class was never really designed for carrier Ops - we bastardised them towards it in the end but then we’re anti submarine platforms with a bit of local air defence for themselves. That remains true for all smaller classes.
I am very much a layman, and I think you might have missed a word after 'we're', so I don't really understand your point.
Sorry, ducking autocorrect! I never know why it prefers “we’re” to “were”.
Should read “they were”. Basically we forced them to act as carriers by the 90s because we didn’t need so much anti sun activity in the North Atlantic, but the size of deck is what limits sortie rates, and it frustrated us, which is why we went bigger on the replacements. And there’s the old maxim that fresh air is free and steel is cheap, so going a bit bigger doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Could sortie rates be improved by part two of my cunning plan, to bring back the Harriers?
*Gets coat*
The Harrier's shortcomings are one of the reasons the QE class is so ludicrously big.
On Invincible we could generate another 8-10 sorties per day usually constrained by technical availability of aircraft which was quite poor. Meanwhile a Nimitz could enerate 120 sorties in 12 hours and that stung. In order to be taken seriously by the USN the RN specified an absolutely ludicrous 150/day sortie rate for the QE class. This is the reason they are so fucking big and expensive.
However it quickly became obvious that there would never be enough aircraft bought to hit that sortie rate so we've ended up with ships that are completely over-sized for the available aviation assets.
As always any attempt to evaluate the QE class in terms of military capability is pointless. That's not what they are for; they serve chiefly as a totem of national virility.
We have useless nukes as a totem of national virility, now two useless aircraft carriers as symobols of national virility. Can a fleet of tumescent airships be far away?
Why does the RAF have both Eurofighter Typhoons and American F-35 Lightnings?
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
You couldn't put Eurofighter on a carrier, for a start. Any carrier.
If defence spending gets increased, then a simple method of increasing air power will be continuing the F-35 buy.
Don’t give BAE ideas. Queue a £20Bn programme to get typhoon on the QEII which delivers not one airframe.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leadWeer).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
But in light of what we got instead it's hard not to feel a little wistful.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a vert tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We did not need to have sunk all Argentina's shipping, had we started to lose the war then obviously we would have needed to start doing that.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
Thankfully we still had a runway at Ascension, and seventeen barely-serviceable V-bombers, for one of the most complex and daring Air Force missions of all time.
The shortage of carriers is why I believe we need several small helicopter/vertical take-off aircraft carriers - like 9 or 10 of them. There is no point in a great lumbering hulk that we don't have adequate escort ships for anyway.
No way we could afford that. Not least because the escort demand would be even greater!
Also the reason for large deck carriers is sortie rates. The invincible class was never really designed for carrier Ops - we bastardised them towards it in the end but then we’re anti submarine platforms with a bit of local air defence for themselves. That remains true for all smaller classes.
I am very much a layman, and I think you might have missed a word after 'we're', so I don't really understand your point.
Sorry, ducking autocorrect! I never know why it prefers “we’re” to “were”.
Should read “they were”. Basically we forced them to act as carriers by the 90s because we didn’t need so much anti sun activity in the North Atlantic, but the size of deck is what limits sortie rates, and it frustrated us, which is why we went bigger on the replacements. And there’s the old maxim that fresh air is free and steel is cheap, so going a bit bigger doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Could sortie rates be improved by part two of my cunning plan, to bring back the Harriers?
*Gets coat*
The Harrier's shortcomings are one of the reasons the QE class is so ludicrously big.
On Invincible we could generate another 8-10 sorties per day usually constrained by technical availability of aircraft which was quite poor. Meanwhile a Nimitz could enerate 120 sorties in 12 hours and that stung. In order to be taken seriously by the USN the RN specified an absolutely ludicrous 150/day sortie rate for the QE class. This is the reason they are so fucking big and expensive.
However it quickly became obvious that there would never be enough aircraft bought to hit that sortie rate so we've ended up with ships that are completely over-sized for the available aviation assets.
As always any attempt to evaluate the QE class in terms of military capability is pointless. That's not what they are for; they serve chiefly as a totem of national virility.
We have useless nukes as a totem of national virility, now two useless aircraft carriers as symobols of national virility. Can a fleet of tumescent airships be far away?
Why does the RAF have both Eurofighter Typhoons and American F-35 Lightnings?
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
You couldn't put Eurofighter on a carrier, for a start. Any carrier.
If defence spending gets increased, then a simple method of increasing air power will be continuing the F-35 buy.
Don’t give BAE ideas. Queue a £20Bn programme to get typhoon on the QEII which delivers not one airframe.
They actually tried that. They tried to claim that they had come up with a way to land a conventional aircraft, without much modification(!!!), on an aircraft carrier.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Starmer thought it was appropriate to serve in Corbyn's government, only the public stopped that from happening.
If you want Corbyn and associations cancelled, then those who felt it appropriate to serve in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet should retire from politics. That would be a good start.
Labour’s choosing a leader with some unwholesome principles and beliefs has helped to land us all with a leader who has none of either.
I don’t think there’s much upside for the Tories in banging on about Corbyn, particularly as he’ll likely be an independent candidate at the next election being opposed by Labour in his own constituency.
Indeed, if the economic situation is as challenging by 2023/24 as now looks increasingly likely, it is going to take messaging and a leader of real substance to give the Tories any chance at all.
"We need to talk about #Westplaining. "It’s a term coined by the Eastern European left to describe a tendency of certain Western leftists to ascribe everything that happens east of Germany to Western policy."
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leadWeer).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
But in light of what we got instead it's hard not to feel a little wistful.
No, it really is not. Corbyn would have been worse over Covid. He would have been worse over Ukraine.
Johnson's bad, but thank God we had him in charge of these two crises, rather than Corbyn.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a vert tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We did not need to have sunk all Argentina's shipping, had we started to lose the war then obviously we would have needed to start doing that.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
Were you actually alive at the time? Because lots of us were. That creates a knowledge deficit on your part which you could rectify by reading a couple of history books. you seemingly choose not to.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Angie would love to dig her up and burn her at the stake! It narks them that she achieved what none of them have got near in the 'Peoples' party'.
The destruction of great swathes of the north?
It's true we've failed dismally there, but you know what they say - horses for courses.
"The destruction of great swathes of the north?"
Oh, grow up. If you want to see 'destruction', look at what is happening in eastern Ukraine.
Not sure it's 'grown up' to judge the politics of the 1980s in Britain by comparison to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. By that token every single thing Mrs T did was wonderful - including the destruction of great swathes of the north. Ditto all our other post-war PMs. Fabulous bunch!
You used the overwrought term 'destruction of great swathes'. I'm just pointing out your language is crud.
Whoops! Maybe their insurers should insist on a little more training for the crews, on these seafaring mammoths.
I do wonder if it might actually be an issue with the vessel's design. Bow/stern thrusters not strong enough? An issue that causes engines to fail?
Sheer bloody size, the windage on something that long and tall means navigating a narrow channel is an exercise in, literally, sailing
There are also some fun hydrodynamic effects from trying to move a large ship though a narrow, shallow waterway. The main effect is that the ship really, really doesn't want to go down the middle in a straight line.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
I'm no expert in this and it is irrelevant anyway because #hyufd is clearly bonkers in thinking we would nuke Argentina, but would it even have been possible then to do so from a sub to an unexpected target. And if possible has @HYUFD considered what Russia, China, USA would have done if we randomly fired an ICBM towards the Americas. I mine possible global destruction over a little lightly populated island.
Possible? Yes. Wise or ever on the table? No, for all the reasons you and many of us have said.
Oh and one more. In 1982 there were WWII veterans in Government and senior military roles. The chances of them supporting delivering a nuclear attack in this way? Zero.
The US launched an atomic bomb to end WW2 in Japan against a non nuclear armed nation, it delivered the desired result
If we had nuked even an Argentinian base manned by three guys and a penguin, we would have been the most reviled nation on Earth.
@MarqueeMark Mark, He is one of your members. Do you have any plans for him? Can I suggest a PPB, TV interviews, his thoughts on your leaflets. You need to give us a chance in Totnes.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a vert tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We did not need to have sunk all Argentina's shipping, had we started to lose the war then obviously we would have needed to start doing that.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
Were you actually alive at the time? Because lots of us were. That creates a knowledge deficit on your part which you could rectify by reading a couple of history books. you seemingly choose not to.
I was less than 1 year old.
You can read all the history books you want but ultimately it was Thatcher as elected PM and Thatcher alone who would have decided how far the UK went to defend the Falklands. She would have known full well that had Argentina kept them her premiership would have been over and the UK left a weak and humiliated nation, clearly proved unable to even defend its own territory against a minor power like Argentina.
Hence she would have retaken them no matter what the cost
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
1) Now, with the garrison and the current state of Argentina, is indeed very different. Then, they were a very serious threat, especially at that distance. Read up on it or speak to people.
2) We would NEVER have used nuclear weapons in a first strike against a non-nuclear armed country. That’s disgusting. Have a word with yourself.
2) We may well have done. Any UK PM who rules out the use of our nuclear weapons as a last resort to defend the UK or British territory if invaded and defence by conventional forces fails is not tough enough for the job.
Thatcher certainly would not have done. Indeed we would be more likely to use them against a non-nuclear armed invading country as they could not respond with a nuclear weapon against us themselves. Pure realpolitik
These are strategic nuclear weapons - I don't know what the payload is, but we are talking world changing destruction. Nobody would do that to defend or attack in a conventional war. If you want the British PM to be armed with a range of nuclear options, that's fine, but that means you need to argue for a range of tactical nuclear warheads and delivery options, either in addition to, or instead of Trident. Both of which have arguments for and against. But don't pretend Trident is it.
In 1982 we had Polaris, not Trident.
Though the Argentine military is weaker now
The warheads then were likely larger yield than they are now.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a vert tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We did not need to have sunk all Argentina's shipping, had we started to lose the war then obviously we would have needed to start doing that.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
Were you actually alive at the time? Because lots of us were. That creates a knowledge deficit on your part which you could rectify by reading a couple of history books. you seemingly choose not to.
I was less than 1 years old.
You can read all the history books you want at the time but ultimately it was Thatcher as elected PM and Thatcher alone who would have decided how far the UK went to defend the Falklands knowing full well that had Argentina kept them her premiership would have been over and the UK left a weak and humiliated nation, clearly proved unable to even defend its own territory against a minor power like Argentina
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leadWeer).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
But in light of what we got instead it's hard not to feel a little wistful.
What you got instead was a deeply flawed PM who, in spite of being utterly unsuited to high office and very often an embarrassment to the whole country has performed reasonably well in the two big crises of his Premiership, and a Leader of the Opposition who actually looks, sounds and acts like a future PM.
That is whole magnitudes better than what we would have had if Corbyn has become PM.
Have you seen my 4 tips further down in this thread? To be fair it’s buried because there’s a lot of proper interesting political discussions I am learning from here today. PB is on fire today, days like this it comes into its own!
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
A Corbyn govt would have most likely been a coalition or tiny majority which would have fallen very early on.
So if we were offered a shit sandwich for a few months or a shit sandwich for several years.......
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
The original point was: "She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. "
People picked you up on "we could easily beat them." We could not "easily beat them". Carrying out a war at that range with the logistics issues was never, ever, going to be easy.
You then doubled down with "We very easily beat them " and then insisted, even when picked up on it, that we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time.
Goalpost shifting doesn't win arguments. You were wrong. It's not weak to admit to having been wrong. It's only weak people who can't admit to being wrong.
The Falklands campaign was a very challenging one. One which many initially thought wouldn't even be attempted, because the challenges were so huge. It would not have taken much for it to have gone horribly wrong - landing a force on a defended island is always difficult. Doing one over several thousand miles... no, that can be described in many ways, but "Easy" is not one of them.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a vert tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We did not need to have sunk all Argentina's shipping, had we started to lose the war then obviously we would have needed to start doing that.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
Were you actually alive at the time? Because lots of us were. That creates a knowledge deficit on your part which you could rectify by reading a couple of history books. you seemingly choose not to.
In particular, his view that nuclear weapons are just another weapon system is terrifying. Are we confident he’s never getting near power?
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
A Corbyn govt would have most likely been a coalition or tiny majority which would have fallen very early on.
So if we were offered a shit sandwich for a few months or a shit sandwich for several years.......
Once a leader is in office, they're not as easy as that to shift out of it.
If you're willing to put someone into Downing Street, you need to think they could be there for the full five years and all that means.
Do you honestly believe it'd be better if Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister today?
I hear Corbyn mentioned quite frequently when people - of all stripes - talk politics.
If you voted in the last General Election - and that’s 32m people - you consciously voted for or against Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader
The idea that we’re all gonna suddenly forget this is wistful dreamcasting by Labourites
Corbyn was awful but Johnson was awfuller. It was a terrible choice but Corbyn was still the lesser of two evils.
No. No no no no no
And that’s why you went down to historic defeat. And this is why the Tories, for all their many many faults, are right to mention Corbyn. Too many lefties still think Corbyn was the better choice. We have several on here today
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscripts even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
I’m visualising Thatcher, eye glued to the periscope eyepiece, cap on backwards at a rakish angle and all sweaty in best Das Boot style, shouting ‘Fire one..’
There’s a free fantasy to add to your collection, chaps.
The Belgrano was, of course, effectively shot in the back, although it was later conceded to be a justifiable act of war.
It's long been my theory that the commander of Conqueror sank the Belgrano based on the message that Woodward put on the communication satellite for relay. Which ordered the sinking - which wasn't actually his to order.
I think that the commander saw the message, knew that it would be withdrawn when the Admiralty saw it (which it was) and decided not to "forbear to chase {Belgrano}, being an enemy then flying."
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3 in time. We never had four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
The original point was: "She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. "
People picked you up on "we could easily beat them." We could not "easily beat them". Carrying out a war at that range with the logistics issues was never, ever, going to be easy.
You then doubled down with "We very easily beat them " and then insisted, even when picked up on it, that we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time.
Goalpost shifting doesn't win arguments. You were wrong. It's not weak to admit to having been wrong. It's only weak people who can't admit to being wrong.
The Falklands campaign was a very challenging one. One which many initially thought wouldn't even be attempted, because the challenges were so huge. It would not have taken much for it to have gone horribly wrong - landing a force on a defended island is always difficult. Doing one over several thousand miles... no, that can be described in many ways, but "Easy" is not one of them.
I'll have to dig out the translation of a paper that came out of Frunze about the Falklands campaign. It was extremely funny for the Soviet Propaganda stye re-assessment of the UK, without actually praising The Imperialists.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
A Corbyn govt would have most likely been a coalition or tiny majority which would have fallen very early on.
So if we were offered a shit sandwich for a few months or a shit sandwich for several years.......
Once a leader is in office, they're not as easy as that to shift out of it.
If you're willing to put someone into Downing Street, you need to think they could be there for the full five years and all that means.
Do you honestly believe it'd be better if Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister today?
No. But yes at the point of GE19 without a workable majority.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
Two leaders both compromised regarding Russia - why do you think it would have made much difference? Public opinion, the views of his party and the geopolitical realities have forced Johnson to cut loose from his previous connections with dodgy Russian money, with a fair bit of foot-dragging along the way; doubtless Corbyn would have been in the same position.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
why, of what importance is the sex of the boss to the topic
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Starmer thought it was appropriate to serve in Corbyn's government, only the public stopped that from happening.
If you want Corbyn and associations cancelled, then those who felt it appropriate to serve in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet should retire from politics. That would be a good start.
It was appropriate. We have elections, Labour stands, if they win the leader becomes PM.
Perhaps a refresher on how our democracy works is in order when you have a minute?
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscripts even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
I’m visualising Thatcher, eye glued to the periscope eyepiece, cap on backwards at a rakish angle and all sweaty in best Das Boot style, shouting ‘Fire one..’
There’s a free fantasy to add to your collection, chaps.
The Belgrano was, of course, effectively shot in the back, although it was later conceded to be a justifiable act of war.
It's long been my theory that the commander of Conqueror sank the Belgrano based on the message that Woodward put on the communication satellite for relay. Which ordered the sinking - which wasn't actually his to order.
I think that the commander saw the message, knew that it would be withdrawn when the Admiralty saw it (which it was) and decided not to "forbear to chase {Belgrano}, being an enemy then flying."
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
1) Now, with the garrison and the current state of Argentina, is indeed very different. Then, they were a very serious threat, especially at that distance. Read up on it or speak to people.
2) We would NEVER have used nuclear weapons in a first strike against a non-nuclear armed country. That’s disgusting. Have a word with yourself.
2) We may well have done. Any UK PM who rules out the use of our nuclear weapons as a last resort to defend the UK or British territory if invaded and defence by conventional forces fails is not tough enough for the job.
Thatcher certainly would not have done. Indeed we would be more likely to use them against a non-nuclear armed invading country as they could not respond with a nuclear weapon against us themselves. Pure realpolitik
Oh god, you really mean it.
Thankfully, actual British policy on the use of the deterrent is very different.
No it isn't. We have nuclear weapons to defend the UK and British territory as a last resort, the Falkland Islands are and were British overseas territory
You’re never going to be allowed anywhere near a decision making role. However if someone mad enough did that take view in Government, and threatened to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, then large parts of MOD and the FCO would resign in protest rather than act on those orders. I’m far from sure a sub captain would obey the order to launch.
If we launched, or went around threatening to, then he US and NATO would drop us, and we’d (rightly) be an international pariah.
Actually every PM writes a letter of last resort already (which could including wiping out as much of the country which has attacked us using our nuclear weapons).
The PM has the authority to take the final decision to defend our nation and its territories, if some civil servants are too wet and weak to do that fine, they can be replaced.
Sub captains also have no alternative but to obey the orders of the PM and government of the day or be dismissed and replaced by the next in command.
The US and NATO alliance is ultimately there to defend us, if they are unwilling to support us in defence of our overseas territories then the alliance is ended anyway
Have you never come across the principle of proportional response in war ? It is both a principle of international law, and of the church whose teachings you claim to follow.
Such an order, unless in response to a nuclear strike, would be both illegal and immoral. If a PM wants tactical nukes, he or she would need to get such a proposal through Parliament. The chance of that happening is nil.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
Better than the disgrace of a human being that we have, yes. Not even close.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
Two leaders both compromised regarding Russia - why do you think it would have made much difference? Public opinion, the views of his party and the geopolitical realities have forced Johnson to cut loose from his previous connections with dodgy Russian money, with a fair bit of foot-dragging along the way; doubtless Corbyn would have been in the same position.
Corbyn is a conviction man which makes him way more dangerous than a self regarding crook like Boris. He would, for instance, never have had any truck with big pharma over vaccines, and we would have got the russian or Chinese variety.
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
It's politics
Ugh. It's all rather... flesh-crawling.
It's not an infatuation. He was leader of the Labour party just three years ago. He still has a large following in the Labour party. The Conservative Party has issues it needs to sort out; so does the Labour Party. Thankfully Starmer is making a good start.
(As an aside, if there were to be an election tomorrow, I'd probably vote Labour, depending on the local candidate though.)
Less than 2 years. He was leader until 4 April 2020.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
The actual leader of the Labour Party whose judgment was so sound that he felt that it was appropriate to serve under Corbyn as Prime Minister, had he won the election?
Oh OK, just "let it go".
He judged - correctly as it turns out - that he was campaigning for the better of the 2 alternatives for PM.
Bit of Realpolitik there.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
Better than the disgrace of a human being that we have, yes. Not even close.
He would certainly have cured you of that feeling you occasionally confess to of having too much money and not paying enough tax on it
The Tories on here are weirdly, dangerously obsessed with Corbyn – a bloke who is not even a Labour MP anymore never mind being leader (having been kicked out by, er, the actual leader).
It's all rather creepy and sinister, this infatuation.
As creepy and sinister as Labour’s obsession with Thatcher, when she hadn’t been near power for a decade or more?
Hardly equivalent! Thatcher was in power for 11 years, Corbyn for not a single day. Also Thatcher held considerable sway over the Tory Party for long after she'd gone. Corbyn and its associated 'ism' has been utterly cancelled by Starmer's Labour.
Your party was led by a literal traitor at the LAST ELECTION. A man who supported Irish terrorists killing british citizens. An anti-Semitic communist with a fondness for jihad
And we’re just supposed to forget this? Yeah, right
And the current leader meekly worked in his Shadow Cabinet....
Fundamentally, it is about the parties' messaging at the next election.
Labour's message will be: Labour has changed. Labour is ready for government The Cons' message will be: Labour hasn't really changed. Behind the leader it is still the same bunch of Britain-hating, London-based cranks and weirdos who don't share your values
The message from Labour will be; you have defaulted on your mortgage and the bailiffs are scheduled for Monday at 0700 hours. Your Land Rover Discovery Sport's Lease has been terminated, your car repossessed and you will now have to move all your belongings to your in-laws home in a £200 2006 Vectra. For those of you who have managed to keep your head above water, inflation is at 10% and your mortgage rate is significantly higher than when you took out your mortgage, and all this happened on the Conservatives watch.
The message from the Conservatives will be; Jeremy Corbyn looks like a pro-Soviet traitor who failed to condemn the execution of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury. Boris Johnson, on the other hand defeated Vladimir Putin after his illegal attempt to annex Ukraine, just after he defeated Covid19 and "did Brexit".
Which message gains most traction? I don't know, but I can guess.
I hear Corbyn mentioned quite frequently when people - of all stripes - talk politics.
If you voted in the last General Election - and that’s 32m people - you consciously voted for or against Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader
The idea that we’re all gonna suddenly forget this is wistful dreamcasting by Labourites
Corbyn was awful but Johnson was awfuller. It was a terrible choice but Corbyn was still the lesser of two evils.
No. No no no no no
And that’s why you went down to historic defeat. And this is why the Tories, for all their many many faults, are right to mention Corbyn. Too many lefties still think Corbyn was the better choice. We have several on here today
Agreed. You can even agree with much of what Corbyn said and still come to the conclusion that he'd be a once in a generation disaster for both the country and the Labour party.
I do think there is a lot of similarity between Corbyn and Johnson in the damage they would have done/are doing to institutions and norms of honest discourse, all of which is predicted in a firm belief in their own rightness.
We had a choice between two evils. That is the deeper problem, and deciding which is worse is a counterfactual with little value when it comes to dealing with it
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
What?
We had scrapped Ark Royal (R09) and its replacement (R07) would not be commissioned until 1985. HMS Hermes was being sold to India. We had to hurriedly undo the sale. HMS Illustrious wasn't ready - it was rushed through commissioning in order to get it to the Falklands. And still didn't get there in time.
At the time war broke out, we technically had one serviceable aircraft carrier (technically, through-deck cruiser), HMS Invincible. We undid the sale of HMS Hermes, and rushed HMS Illustrious through commissioning well ahead of schedule; fortunately, it went well.
So we got from 1-maybe-2 up to trying-to-get-3-in-time but not managing it. We never had four. We were never anywhere near four. Why do you think we had four?
P.S. There is no way the Falklands was easy, straightforward, or a done deal. You don't know what you're talking about.
(Disclosure: I, with many others, covered Op CORPORATE in depth in my Intermediate Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy, spent a few months in the Falklands in the Nineties on detachment there so I could see the terrain, and went on Invincible a couple of times)
The original point (which you have obviously arrived late at) was that Thatcher was prepared to go to war with Argentina to defend the Falklands but not China over Hong Kong, hence she agreed to the handover of the latter but not the former. We could defend overseas territories where they wanted to stay British and the only other nations that wanted them were weaker than us but not against nations stronger than us. Hence Thatcher would also not have gone to war with Russia over Ukraine despite Heathener's remarks to the contrary.
In 1982 we had a better trained army, pilots and a bigger navy than Argentina and we also had submarines with nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have. So in the end we would win it regardless. Now of course the Argentine military is even weaker then then.
We also won it with 2 aircraft carriers like now but had the war continued for several years then Ark Royal and Illustrious would have been included in the Task Force too
“So I’m the end we would win it regardless”.
Never spoken to anyone who was there or read up on it then?
War isn’t Top Trumps.
We beat Argentina then and we would beat Argentina now.
Ultimately we would win no matter what the cost and we won it by conventional forces and our armed forces were stronger than Argentina's then and are stronger than Argentina's now.
As I also stated as a last resort had we not won it with conventional forces we had nuclear weapons which Argentina did not have to use as a last resort to defend the British territory of the Falklands and hit Argentine military bases in Argentina
You're insane.
We never had nuclear weapons to attack Argentina with.
We were not using them to attack Argentina with.
It was Argentina's decision to invade the Falklands knowing full well we were a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
Had we not won with conventional forces then by their invasion Argentina risked a nuclear missile attack launched by a British submarine on Argentina. That was the risk they took by the invasion, nuclear weapons being our weapon of last resort to defend British territory (which includes the Falklands)
You do realise that everyone can read this thread and see your original posts where you comment on it being easy don't you? Trying to twist and turn by changing the subject is obvious to everyone.
We were never going to use nukes. We didn't even attack Argentina other than sabotage attempts on planes. We also restricted attacks on shipping to the exclusion zone, hence the issues that arise over the Belgrano.
We had one objective to win back the Falklands, nothing else and your comments saying it was easy and not difficult (see above) is ignorant and insulting to the service men involved. The fact you can not bring yourself to apologize for this is appalling. I would like to see you say that to their face.
Yes, my original post (which you have still not bothered to find) made at 8 32 am this morning.
'No she wouldn't, Thatcher was a realist about what the UK could do militarily.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them. However she never threatened the USSR militarily and she agreed to stick to the Hong Kong handover to China as she knew we could not beat them militarily either'
How do you know we were never going to use nukes? You were not Thatcher, you were a wet SDP Liberal I expect at the time.
We never needed to try as we won the war with conventional forces and without going too far beyond the Falklands and surrounding area.
Had we not won the war with conventional forces anything would have been on the table to defend British territory and that has zero to do with the sacrifices of our forces in the war
How do I know we wouldn't, because we made a big point of restricting our activity to the Falklands, even in a conventional sense. We did not attack Argentina on a larger scale even though we could. We could have sunk all her shipping, but we didn't. It was a very deliberate policy of the British Govt to have a vert tightly focused campaign. I also know we wouldn't because unlike you our Govt were not barking mad.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
We did not need to have sunk all Argentina's shipping, had we started to lose the war then obviously we would have needed to start doing that.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
Were you actually alive at the time? Because lots of us were. That creates a knowledge deficit on your part which you could rectify by reading a couple of history books. you seemingly choose not to.
I was less than 1 years old.
You can read all the history books you want at the time but ultimately it was Thatcher as elected PM and Thatcher alone who would have decided how far the UK went to defend the Falklands knowing full well that had Argentina kept them her premiership would have been over and the UK left a weak and humiliated nation, clearly proved unable to even defend its own territory against a minor power like Argentina
Not quite how I remember it.
I wasn't 1 at the time. I was out of nappies. I was really, really worried, like my dad, because we realised how close a thing it was.
I hear Corbyn mentioned quite frequently when people - of all stripes - talk politics.
If you voted in the last General Election - and that’s 32m people - you consciously voted for or against Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader
The idea that we’re all gonna suddenly forget this is wistful dreamcasting by Labourites
Corbyn was awful but Johnson was awfuller. It was a terrible choice but Corbyn was still the lesser of two evils.
No. No no no no no
And that’s why you went down to historic defeat. And this is why the Tories, for all their many many faults, are right to mention Corbyn. Too many lefties still think Corbyn was the better choice. We have several on here today
We lost because Corbyn was shit. I still think Johnson was more shit. The public thought otherwise, as is their prerogative. I would have dearly loved for Corbyn not to have been our leader and did everything I could to prevent and stop him being our leader, and was far from surprised that he turned out to be such a fucking disaster, but the policy platform of Labour even under his appallingly flawed leadership was closer to my own views than that of the Tories, so I still voted Labour. You can have all the vapours you like about that choice but I stand by it completely, sorry.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscripts even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
I’m visualising Thatcher, eye glued to the periscope eyepiece, cap on backwards at a rakish angle and all sweaty in best Das Boot style, shouting ‘Fire one..’
There’s a free fantasy to add to your collection, chaps.
The Belgrano was, of course, effectively shot in the back, although it was later conceded to be a justifiable act of war.
It's long been my theory that the commander of Conqueror sank the Belgrano based on the message that Woodward put on the communication satellite for relay. Which ordered the sinking - which wasn't actually his to order.
I think that the commander saw the message, knew that it would be withdrawn when the Admiralty saw it (which it was) and decided not to "forbear to chase {Belgrano}, being an enemy then flying."
What very significant effect did the sinking of the Belgrano have on the air war?
Put their carrier in port didn’t it?
Put most of their navy in port.
The usefulness of the carrier without the catapults is still debated.
There is an urban legend that the catapults are still in a warehouse somewhere in the UK - they were here, being refurbished when the war came. Seized by the Government...
Comments
If you want Corbyn and associations cancelled, then those who felt it appropriate to serve in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet should retire from politics. That would be a good start.
It's true we've failed dismally there, but you know what they say - horses for courses.
Hahaha. You would love people to believe that those years could be forgotten. Not a chance.
Because, of course, you all want what’s best for the Tory party, electorally
Oh, grow up. If you want to see 'destruction', look at what is happening in eastern Ukraine.
So what? He's been kicked out of the PLP by the –– er –– actual leader of the Labour Party.
It must be so miserable for you that your antihero is not even a Labour MP anymore.
Let it go FFS.
Better to be feared and reviled over how far we will go to defend ourselves than loved but not respected and seen as weak and unable to defend ourselves and our overseas territories
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1504068980574760960
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60754135?utm_campaign=later-linkinbio-bbcnews&utm_content=later-25367491&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkin.bio
Is that because its never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket?
Labour's message will be: Labour has changed. Labour is ready for government
The Cons' message will be: Labour hasn't really changed. Behind the leader it is still the same bunch of Britain-hating, London-based cranks and weirdos who don't share your values
Oh OK, just "let it go".
If defence spending gets increased, then a simple method of increasing air power will be continuing the F-35 buy.
If you voted in the last General Election - and that’s 32m people - you consciously voted for or against Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader
The idea that we’re all gonna suddenly forget this is wistful dreamcasting by Labourites
In 2017 let us not forget Corbyn won more seats than Miliband in 2015 and Brown in 2010 and the biggest Labour voteshare since Blair in 2001 and May needed the DUP's support to keep the Tories in power
Corbyn is a traitor.
That’s why my position isn’t garbage, yours is. The definition of garbage foreign policy here is YOU are now simultaneously funding and arming both sides in the Yemen conflict, in order to help our war on the Russian people.
Re original point, what are you on about? I responded initially to some quotes you made and nothing else which I have gone back and found and repeated here previously. I will do so again, but anyone can see those original quotes by using 'show previous quotes' and see your original comments which were:
'We could easily beat them'
and
'We very easily beat them'
and
'It was not that difficult'
It was that, and nothing else I objected to because it is utter nonsense and an insult to the memory of those who fought and died. You are an absolute disgrace for your disregard for human life. How you can call yourself a Christian I don't know.
Also you have made several attempts to imply I did not support the war. Well you are wrong and as an adult at the time I knew people who went to the Falklands. I'm pretty sure I know what they would think of your views in diminishing their bravery.
Western nations still need a lot of oil, the price is rising thanks to Putin, and nothing we do or don’t do in the Middle East is going to stop Sunni and Shia continuing their centuries-long fight.
There have been two exceptions.
One, obviously, was Trump. I was, and remain, horrified that he won. That has permanently changed my attitude to the Republicans.
The other was Corbyn. Alright, he didn't win. But he did horribly well in 2017. An awful lot of water will have to flow under the bridge for me, so far as Labour are concerned. Even though, as it happens, I don't mind Starmer at all.
Shame he was liquidated earlyish on, could have been a valuable addition to the cast of grotesques of Death of Stalin.
A thread on @ScotNational's coverage of a recent popular @thesaintonline post, and why our Executive team decided to stand by the piece.
(1/17)
https://twitter.com/lgrigg23/status/1504043274465685505?s=21
Bit of Realpolitik there.
You can go on with your handwringing, wet liberalism and handed over Falklands to Argentina with barely a whimper had the war not always gone our way. Thatcher however would have been prepared to fight no matter what the cost until the goal of liberating the Falklands was achieved. That is why you are a wet lettuce Liberal and I am a red meat Tory.
If you read the Old Testament you would have seen the Jews backed by God went to some pretty brutal lengths to defend themselves, as Pharoah's troops for example found out.
You have also again ignored my point to Heathener that Thatcher was realistic in how far she could go to war ie with Argentina but not alone v the USSR and China
Correctly?
Correctly!!!???
You still think its correct that Corbyn would have been the better Prime Minister?
You still think its a shame that Jeremy Corbyn isn't Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this Russia/Ukraine crisis?
Give me a break!
“But in light of what we got instead it's hard not to feel a little wistful.”
+++
Bit harsh on Kier Starmer
Nazanin is now in the air flying away from 6 years of hell in Iran.
My heart goes out to Gabriella and Richard, as her long journey back home to them gets closer by the minute.
#NazaninIsFree ❤️ https://twitter.com/TulipSiddiq/status/1504085551145787393/photo/1
The response to that were somewhat rude....
I don’t think there’s much upside for the Tories in banging on about Corbyn, particularly as he’ll likely be an independent candidate at the next election being opposed by Labour in his own constituency.
Indeed, if the economic situation is as challenging by 2023/24 as now looks increasingly likely, it is going to take messaging and a leader of real substance to give the Tories any chance at all.
Johnson's bad, but thank God we had him in charge of these two crises, rather than Corbyn.
Sir Gerhard rather soft in the betting
Michael Foot was a smart intelligent man.
Corbyn is a gullible, credulous fool.
The mystery is Diane Abbot, who is by many accounts actually smart.
You can read all the history books you want but ultimately it was Thatcher as elected PM and Thatcher alone who would have decided how far the UK went to defend the Falklands. She would have known full well that had Argentina kept them her premiership would have been over and the UK left a weak and humiliated nation, clearly proved unable to even defend its own territory against a minor power like Argentina.
Hence she would have retaken them no matter what the cost
That is whole magnitudes better than what we would have had if Corbyn has become PM.
Have you seen my 4 tips further down in this thread? To be fair it’s buried because there’s a lot of proper interesting political discussions I am learning from here today. PB is on fire today, days like this it comes into its own!
So if we were offered a shit sandwich for a few months or a shit sandwich for several years.......
People picked you up on "we could easily beat them."
We could not "easily beat them". Carrying out a war at that range with the logistics issues was never, ever, going to be easy.
You then doubled down with "We very easily beat them " and then insisted, even when picked up on it, that we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time.
Goalpost shifting doesn't win arguments. You were wrong.
It's not weak to admit to having been wrong. It's only weak people who can't admit to being wrong.
The Falklands campaign was a very challenging one. One which many initially thought wouldn't even be attempted, because the challenges were so huge. It would not have taken much for it to have gone horribly wrong - landing a force on a defended island is always difficult. Doing one over several thousand miles... no, that can be described in many ways, but "Easy" is not one of them.
It's pissing down
A lot more rain than expected. https://twitter.com/HorseRacing_Net/status/1504079346004283397
If you're willing to put someone into Downing Street, you need to think they could be there for the full five years and all that means.
Do you honestly believe it'd be better if Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister today?
And that’s why you went down to historic defeat. And this is why the Tories, for all their many many faults, are right to mention Corbyn. Too many lefties still think Corbyn was the better choice. We have several on here today
What very significant effect did the sinking of the Belgrano have on the air war?
Perhaps a refresher on how our democracy works is in order when you have a minute?
It is both a principle of international law, and of the church whose teachings you claim to follow.
Such an order, unless in response to a nuclear strike, would be both illegal and immoral.
If a PM wants tactical nukes, he or she would need to get such a proposal through Parliament. The chance of that happening is nil.
The message from the Conservatives will be; Jeremy Corbyn looks like a pro-Soviet traitor who failed to condemn the execution of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury. Boris Johnson, on the other hand defeated Vladimir Putin after his illegal attempt to annex Ukraine, just after he defeated Covid19 and "did Brexit".
Which message gains most traction? I don't know, but I can guess.
I do think there is a lot of similarity between Corbyn and Johnson in the damage they would have done/are doing to institutions and norms of honest discourse, all of which is predicted in a firm belief in their own rightness.
We had a choice between two evils. That is the deeper problem, and deciding which is worse is a counterfactual with little value when it comes to dealing with it
I would have dearly loved for Corbyn not to have been our leader and did everything I could to prevent and stop him being our leader, and was far from surprised that he turned out to be such a fucking disaster, but the policy platform of Labour even under his appallingly flawed leadership was closer to my own views than that of the Tories, so I still voted Labour. You can have all the vapours you like about that choice but I stand by it completely, sorry.
The usefulness of the carrier without the catapults is still debated.
There is an urban legend that the catapults are still in a warehouse somewhere in the UK - they were here, being refurbished when the war came. Seized by the Government...