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In Other News …. – politicalbetting.com

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  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,285

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    Police Squad?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627
    Cicero said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an unproportional use of nuclear weapons.
    You cannot prove that and it was more than an election it would have been loss of British territory to foreign invasion
    Have you read Margaret Thatcher´s memoires? I can assure you that you are completely wrong.
    His version probably includes passages where she ponders whether to nuke the miners.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,715
    Anoosheh Ashoori's story.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/16/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-anoosheh-ashoori-iran-evin-prison


    "I run for an hour at least every day. I have a plan, or a dream, that I will participate in the London Marathon after my release."


  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    biggles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    On a forced choice any nation's leader should prefer being feared and reviled as a last resort than being weak and incapable of defending the nation and its territory
    Have you noticed how all of us, irrespective of politics, agree it would be utterly wrong to use nuclear weapons first against a non-nuclear state in any circumstances? Does that not tell you anything? Thatcher wouldn’t have done it. No PM would do it, and if they tried the Cabinet, MOD, or the military would stop them.
    No, it tells us most of you have far less balls than Thatcher and would have left us and our overseas territories ripe for foreign invasion without response
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083

    HYUFD said:

    agingjb2 said:

    There is an alternate history where, had the retaking of the Falklands stalled, the military leaders had allowed Thatcher's command to nuke Rosario, was it not.

    I'll try. Latin America, including Chile, break relations with us, as does any state hostile to us for any other reasons. The USA and France step back and distance themselves. Most of the Commonwealth drop out. Australia, New Zealand and Canada go very silent. The EU move towards expulsion. Our presence within the United Nations is actively opposed. There is no explicit support anywhere, and there is almost nowhere where we can visit. As the effects of radiation sickness in Argentina become evident, our unpopularity grows. We are isolated. Even possible friends accept that we should be isolated in every way. We try to survive on own. We fail. Nobody cares.

    Alternate history, for which we may be grateful; but we should perhaps remember that it is one view of the implication of the hope of a Tory voice on this site.

    There's an alternate history where she Thatcher goes completely Bursar and orders a nuke strike, and the monarch gets involved.

    Willie Whitelaw phones the Palace after Maggie starts gibbering and chewing the table legs screaming "BURN THEM IN NUCLEAR FIRE!"

    The Queen sends a message to the sub commanders telling them they are NOT, under any circumstances, to launch missiles against Argentine sites.

    Massive constitutional crisis ensues. The fate of the monarchy itself is now in jeopardy (the Queen would have known this was coming, but her duty would compel her). Maggie leaves Downing Street in a straightjacket. International repercussions and huge recriminations over the fact that the British PM even tried to order such a thing. Huge loss of standing of the UK on the world stage.

    And for all of this, it's probably considerably more likely than everyone standing by and letting the nukes fly.

    (First and hugely the most likely: Maggie doesn't go mega-evil and mad.
    Second, and the most likely by far of all the possibilities where she gets possessed by the ghost of Joe Stalin, those around her just say, "No, Prime Minister, I think you need a rest cure, Mr Whitelaw can take the helm while you recover"
    And then we can go with the Queen Intervention scenario.
    All more likely than HYUFD's fantasy)
    Firstly the world would not know even if that happened.

    Second it is constitutionally the PM who in reality sends our forces to war and the Monarch who takes an oath to defend her territory at all costs.

    The Queen would know her coronation oath also required her to support her PM defend the Falklands at all costs
    Oh, that sort of thing would have got out. If for no other reason than it would be very difficult to conceal a raving Prime Minister.

    Second - why do you think I said it would be a massive constitutional crisis ensuing? The Queen isn't supposed to get involved.

    Third - have you noticed that the Officers of the Armed Forces do not swear an oath to the Prime Minister? We swear an oath to the Monarch. Some Constitutional scholars regard this as the ultimate check/balance. Just in case the PM does go all Putin.
    Previously he's argued in favour of monarchs vetoing bills whenever they want (if polling supported them, natch) and the MPs not being able to take action to stop them. The exact opposite of the 'must do whatever the PM says' approach he's pretending to believe now.
  • Incredibly the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city Melitopol, who was kidnapped by Russian forces last week, has been freed.

    President Zelenskyy speaking to him here on the phone.

    Another advisor said he was freed in a "special operation".


    https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1504187687791693834
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    agingjb2 said:

    There is an alternate history where, had the retaking of the Falklands stalled, the military leaders had allowed Thatcher's command to nuke Rosario, was it not.

    I'll try. Latin America, including Chile, break relations with us, as does any state hostile to us for any other reasons. The USA and France step back and distance themselves. Most of the Commonwealth drop out. Australia, New Zealand and Canada go very silent. The EU move towards expulsion. Our presence within the United Nations is actively opposed. There is no explicit support anywhere, and there is almost nowhere where we can visit. As the effects of radiation sickness in Argentina become evident, our unpopularity grows. We are isolated. Even possible friends accept that we should be isolated in every way. We try to survive on own. We fail. Nobody cares.

    Alternate history, for which we may be grateful; but we should perhaps remember that it is one view of the implication of the hope of a Tory voice on this site.

    There's an alternate history where she Thatcher goes completely Bursar and orders a nuke strike, and the monarch gets involved.

    Willie Whitelaw phones the Palace after Maggie starts gibbering and chewing the table legs screaming "BURN THEM IN NUCLEAR FIRE!"

    The Queen sends a message to the sub commanders telling them they are NOT, under any circumstances, to launch missiles against Argentine sites.

    Massive constitutional crisis ensues. The fate of the monarchy itself is now in jeopardy (the Queen would have known this was coming, but her duty would compel her). Maggie leaves Downing Street in a straightjacket. International repercussions and huge recriminations over the fact that the British PM even tried to order such a thing. Huge loss of standing of the UK on the world stage.

    And for all of this, it's probably considerably more likely than everyone standing by and letting the nukes fly.

    (First and hugely the most likely: Maggie doesn't go mega-evil and mad.
    Second, and the most likely by far of all the possibilities where she gets possessed by the ghost of Joe Stalin, those around her just say, "No, Prime Minister, I think you need a rest cure, Mr Whitelaw can take the helm while you recover"
    And then we can go with the Queen Intervention scenario.
    All more likely than HYUFD's fantasy)
    Firstly the world would not know even if that happened.

    Second it is constitutionally the PM who in reality sends our forces to war and the Monarch who takes an oath to defend her territory at all costs.

    The Queen would know her coronation oath also required her to support her PM defend the Falklands at all costs
    Oh, that sort of thing would have got out. If for no other reason than it would be very difficult to conceal a raving Prime Minister.

    Second - why do you think I said it would be a massive constitutional crisis ensuing? The Queen isn't supposed to get involved.

    Third - have you noticed that the Officers of the Armed Forces do not swear an oath to the Prime Minister? We swear an oath to the Monarch. Some Constitutional scholars regard this as the ultimate check/balance. Just in case the PM does go all Putin.
    As I said the Monarch also swears an oath to defend her territory
    Given that Queen Elizabeth II has given up quite a bit of territory during her reign, do you think regicide would be appropiate?
    Only by consent of the people of those territories.

    Not without the consent of the people and territory she took an oath to defend by foreign invasion
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    Christ.
    In that case think what a chortle desert your average R4 comedy would be without canned laughter.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,715

    Incredibly the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city Melitopol, who was kidnapped by Russian forces last week, has been freed.

    President Zelenskyy speaking to him here on the phone.

    Another advisor said he was freed in a "special operation".


    https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1504187687791693834

    OMG.

    Can this be true?

    Putin is getting a total hiding in Ukr.

    Slava Ukraine!

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,431
    edited March 2022

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    Christ.
    In that case think what a chortle desert your average R4 comedy would be without canned laughter.
    I know it's a bit strange, but it's true. comedy programmes without it if there's a funny joke I'll smile. I do just find them a bit flat.
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,206

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    Christ.
    In that case think what a chortle desert your average R4 comedy would be without canned laughter.
    You mean they have comedy on radio 4?
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,247
    If anyone is tiring of tonight's ludicrous discussion may I point out that there's a rather good Tchaikovsky concert on R3?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    Without wanting to go over the last thread all over again I looked up some stuff on the Falklands War regarding @HYUFD comment on it being easy.

    The US Navy assessed that a successful counter invasion was impossible

    Lord Craig stated that if just 6 of the 13 bomb fuses that failed because the Argentine Hawks were flying too low had detonated we would have lost

    And that is ignoring the threat of the exocets getting past the destroyers and frigates which suffered badly protecting the carriers.

    But hey ho just a cake walk.

    Right you want to restart this I can go on all evening and all night now if needed.

    None of that changes whatsoever my point that Thatcher was prepared to fight to retake the Falklands as Argentina did not have nuclear weapons unlike us and had a far weaker military like us. Hence we won the war and she would have continued to fight the war no matter what the cost.

    Sending a no fly zone into Ukraine against a Russia armed with nuclear weapons is however a totally different ball game
    Even had all our carriers been sunk and most of our destroyers and frigates been sunk (which they weren't and was highly unlikely) we could still have placed submarines armed with nuclear weapons off the coast off Argentina and refused to remove them until the Argentines withdrew
    Again showing your ignorance. Re our frigates and destroyers over 50% were hit. As per my previous reference frome some who actually knew what he was talking about if just 6 of the 13 bombs that failed to explode had done so we would have lost. So not highly unlikely at all, but nearly happened. Bizarrely we were lucky that the very brave Argentine Hawk pilots got too low. As it was 4 did sink.
    So 50% were not and most were not sunk and our carriers survived.

    Even if all 13 bombs had not gone off that did not mean we would have lost as we had nuclear weapons and Argentina did not.

    As I said we could have parked subs armed with nuclear missiles off the Argentine Coast and refused to remove them until Argentine forces withdrew from the Falkland Islands
    Again completely missed the point. All I objected to was you saying it was easy. Go on finally admit it wasn't easy. The US Navy thought it impossible. The head of the RAF thought that we would have lost if 6 of those ,13 bombs had exploded. If they had of exploded we would have lost over half our frigates and destroyers.

    Under no circumstances can that be described as easy.

    Go on admit it wasn't easy. That is all I am after. Be a man at admit you were wrong to say tha.
    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.
    Bonkers. I never said we should concede defeat. Don't know where you got that from. Once we were committed, we were committed. And I was in favour of us doing so. You just make stuff up.

    I have objected to one thing, you saying 3 times that the Falklands war was easy and you are so weak you can't admit that was a mistake. Pathetic.

    You are so feeble and weak that you are happy to insult the memory of those that fought and the government of the day than admit you were wrong.

    Shame on you.
    Yes you did.

    You were not prepared to use all methods at our disposal to free the Falklands. You effectively said if the war had started to go against our conventional forces we would automatically have lost.

    You restarted this debate not me, so stop whinging if you can't take the heat
    Go on stop keep avoiding the point. Admit you were wrong in saying the , Falklands war was easy.

    Stop being a pathetic whimp and man up.
    I am not ever going to concede to you so tough.

    My original point stands absolutely we would in the end win the war with Argentina as we had a bigger and more effective military than them and nuclear weapons unlike them.

    Intervening against a nuclear armed Russia over Ukraine however is a different matter
    So you stick by your 3 statements that the Falklands War was easy.

    You are an absolute disgrace. I can't imagine any Tory would support your view.
    @HYUFD is a dude and a mensch
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Forgive me if I haven't quite got this right, but are we at the stage of the argument where Maggie should be seen as a feeble pussy-footing Lib because she didn't nuke Buenos Aires?

    If only she’d been a proper Conservative?
    I doubt real Thatcher lives up to the Thatcher that lives inside some peoples heads in darker corners of the internet and Conservative clubs.
    There is the real Margaret Thatcher, who many of us lived through and either loathed or loved, and the inflatable Margaret Thatcher so beloved for the fantasies of Tory boys of a certain age.
    Loving and loathing her were not the only options. That in itself is historical fantasy.
    Of all the PMs of my lifetime, she is the one that draws the strongest opinions, on either side.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an unproportional use of nuclear weapons.
    You cannot prove that and it was more than an election it would have been loss of British territory to foreign invasion
    I'll get Sir Max Hastings to give you a call, he wrote the definitive book on the war.
    I have met him before but again it was Thatcher's decision, not his
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an unproportional use of nuclear weapons.
    You cannot prove that and it was more than an election it would have been loss of British territory to foreign invasion
    I'll get Sir Max Hastings to give you a call, he wrote the definitive book on the war.
    I have met him before but again it was Thatcher's decision, not his
    And not yours.

    She never once expressed an interest in using non-convention unproportional nuclear force. This is a bizarre and twisted fantasy you've invented.
    She did not scrap our nuclear deterrent did she, so she always kept it as a last resort of defence
    Yes, last resort.

    The Falklands War was not the last resort.
    It was British territory as much as Surrey, if there was no other means of defending it that would have been the last resort
    Does the Falkland Islands send MPs to Westminster like Surrey does?
    Nor does the Isle of Man, that is also however a Crown territory like the Falklands was then we would defend at all costs
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    agingjb2 said:

    There is an alternate history where, had the retaking of the Falklands stalled, the military leaders had allowed Thatcher's command to nuke Rosario, was it not.

    I'll try. Latin America, including Chile, break relations with us, as does any state hostile to us for any other reasons. The USA and France step back and distance themselves. Most of the Commonwealth drop out. Australia, New Zealand and Canada go very silent. The EU move towards expulsion. Our presence within the United Nations is actively opposed. There is no explicit support anywhere, and there is almost nowhere where we can visit. As the effects of radiation sickness in Argentina become evident, our unpopularity grows. We are isolated. Even possible friends accept that we should be isolated in every way. We try to survive on own. We fail. Nobody cares.

    Alternate history, for which we may be grateful; but we should perhaps remember that it is one view of the implication of the hope of a Tory voice on this site.

    There's an alternate history where she Thatcher goes completely Bursar and orders a nuke strike, and the monarch gets involved.

    Willie Whitelaw phones the Palace after Maggie starts gibbering and chewing the table legs screaming "BURN THEM IN NUCLEAR FIRE!"

    The Queen sends a message to the sub commanders telling them they are NOT, under any circumstances, to launch missiles against Argentine sites.

    Massive constitutional crisis ensues. The fate of the monarchy itself is now in jeopardy (the Queen would have known this was coming, but her duty would compel her). Maggie leaves Downing Street in a straightjacket. International repercussions and huge recriminations over the fact that the British PM even tried to order such a thing. Huge loss of standing of the UK on the world stage.

    And for all of this, it's probably considerably more likely than everyone standing by and letting the nukes fly.

    (First and hugely the most likely: Maggie doesn't go mega-evil and mad.
    Second, and the most likely by far of all the possibilities where she gets possessed by the ghost of Joe Stalin, those around her just say, "No, Prime Minister, I think you need a rest cure, Mr Whitelaw can take the helm while you recover"
    And then we can go with the Queen Intervention scenario.
    All more likely than HYUFD's fantasy)
    Firstly the world would not know even if that happened.

    Second it is constitutionally the PM who in reality sends our forces to war and the Monarch who takes an oath to defend her territory at all costs.

    The Queen would know her coronation oath also required her to support her PM defend the Falklands at all costs
    Oh, that sort of thing would have got out. If for no other reason than it would be very difficult to conceal a raving Prime Minister.

    Second - why do you think I said it would be a massive constitutional crisis ensuing? The Queen isn't supposed to get involved.

    Third - have you noticed that the Officers of the Armed Forces do not swear an oath to the Prime Minister? We swear an oath to the Monarch. Some Constitutional scholars regard this as the ultimate check/balance. Just in case the PM does go all Putin.
    As I said the Monarch also swears an oath to defend her territory
    Given that Queen Elizabeth II has given up quite a bit of territory during her reign, do you think regicide would be appropiate?
    Only by consent of the people of those territories.

    Not without the consent of the people and territory she took an oath to defend by foreign invasion
    I don't remember there being a referendum in Hong Kong?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,431

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    Police Squad?
    I don't think I've seen it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    Anyone know why Thatcher didn't nuke China instead of handing over Hong Kong?

    China had nukes unlike Argentina
  • HYUFD said:

    Anyone know why Thatcher didn't nuke China instead of handing over Hong Kong?

    China had nukes unlike Argentina
    So do we.

    We could by your logic have used/threatened our nukes to keep a hold over Hong Kong.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,556
    "France considering giving Corsica 'autonomy' as violent protests sweep island"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/16/france-considering-giving-corsica-autonomy-violent-protests/
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,860
    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,817
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Yes, now we have progressed to Mrs Brown's Boys.
    Progressed?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    agingjb2 said:

    There is an alternate history where, had the retaking of the Falklands stalled, the military leaders had allowed Thatcher's command to nuke Rosario, was it not.

    I'll try. Latin America, including Chile, break relations with us, as does any state hostile to us for any other reasons. The USA and France step back and distance themselves. Most of the Commonwealth drop out. Australia, New Zealand and Canada go very silent. The EU move towards expulsion. Our presence within the United Nations is actively opposed. There is no explicit support anywhere, and there is almost nowhere where we can visit. As the effects of radiation sickness in Argentina become evident, our unpopularity grows. We are isolated. Even possible friends accept that we should be isolated in every way. We try to survive on own. We fail. Nobody cares.

    Alternate history, for which we may be grateful; but we should perhaps remember that it is one view of the implication of the hope of a Tory voice on this site.

    There's an alternate history where she Thatcher goes completely Bursar and orders a nuke strike, and the monarch gets involved.

    Willie Whitelaw phones the Palace after Maggie starts gibbering and chewing the table legs screaming "BURN THEM IN NUCLEAR FIRE!"

    The Queen sends a message to the sub commanders telling them they are NOT, under any circumstances, to launch missiles against Argentine sites.

    Massive constitutional crisis ensues. The fate of the monarchy itself is now in jeopardy (the Queen would have known this was coming, but her duty would compel her). Maggie leaves Downing Street in a straightjacket. International repercussions and huge recriminations over the fact that the British PM even tried to order such a thing. Huge loss of standing of the UK on the world stage.

    And for all of this, it's probably considerably more likely than everyone standing by and letting the nukes fly.

    (First and hugely the most likely: Maggie doesn't go mega-evil and mad.
    Second, and the most likely by far of all the possibilities where she gets possessed by the ghost of Joe Stalin, those around her just say, "No, Prime Minister, I think you need a rest cure, Mr Whitelaw can take the helm while you recover"
    And then we can go with the Queen Intervention scenario.
    All more likely than HYUFD's fantasy)
    Firstly the world would not know even if that happened.

    Second it is constitutionally the PM who in reality sends our forces to war and the Monarch who takes an oath to defend her territory at all costs.

    The Queen would know her coronation oath also required her to support her PM defend the Falklands at all costs
    Oh, that sort of thing would have got out. If for no other reason than it would be very difficult to conceal a raving Prime Minister.

    Second - why do you think I said it would be a massive constitutional crisis ensuing? The Queen isn't supposed to get involved.

    Third - have you noticed that the Officers of the Armed Forces do not swear an oath to the Prime Minister? We swear an oath to the Monarch. Some Constitutional scholars regard this as the ultimate check/balance. Just in case the PM does go all Putin.
    As I said the Monarch also swears an oath to defend her territory
    Given that Queen Elizabeth II has given up quite a bit of territory during her reign, do you think regicide would be appropiate?
    Only by consent of the people of those territories.

    Not without the consent of the people and territory she took an oath to defend by foreign invasion
    I don't remember there being a referendum in Hong Kong?
    There was one in Malta - shame we didn't take them up on it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Maltese_United_Kingdom_integration_referendum
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    M*A*S*H went on more than 3 times longer than the Korean War.



  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    Anyone know why Thatcher didn't nuke China instead of handing over Hong Kong?

    China had nukes unlike Argentina
    So do we.

    We could by your logic have used/threatened our nukes to keep a hold over Hong Kong.
    No as China could have responded with nukes, unlike Argentina.

    China's military was also far bigger than Argentina's.

    Hence my original point still stands about why Thatcher could go to war with Argentina over the Falklands but would not have risked military intervention with Russia over Ukraine
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,353
    I think it incredibly unlikely that Thatcher would have ordered a nuclear strike on Buenos Aires, had the Falklands campaign stalled. She might have ordered the sinking of any Argentine naval vessel that left port.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    Sean_F said:

    I think it incredibly unlikely that Thatcher would have ordered a nuclear strike on Buenos Aires, had the Falklands campaign stalled. She might have ordered the sinking of any Argentine naval vessel that left port.

    Hopefully that would have sufficed so no further last resort measures needed
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    Foxy said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    M*A*S*H went on more than 3 times longer than the Korean War.

    It won't be long before Call the Midwives overtakes real time.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,817

    Incredibly the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city Melitopol, who was kidnapped by Russian forces last week, has been freed.

    President Zelenskyy speaking to him here on the phone.

    Another advisor said he was freed in a "special operation".


    https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1504187687791693834

    OMG.

    Can this be true?

    Putin is getting a total hiding in Ukr.

    Slava Ukraine!

    Ukrainian special forces have had an absolutely incredible war to date. Really, really well trained.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Anyone know why Thatcher didn't nuke China instead of handing over Hong Kong?

    China had nukes unlike Argentina
    So do we.

    We could by your logic have used/threatened our nukes to keep a hold over Hong Kong.
    No as China could have responded with nukes, unlike Argentina.

    China's military was also far bigger than Argentina's.

    Hence my original point still stands about why Thatcher could go to war with Argentina over the Falklands but would not have risked military intervention with Russia over Ukraine
    You think the USA let alone the USSR would be content to see nuclear weapons go flying around the world without any sort of response?

    You are insane.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    On a forced choice any nation's leader should prefer being feared and reviled as a last resort than being weak and incapable of defending the nation and its territory
    Have you noticed how all of us, irrespective of politics, agree it would be utterly wrong to use nuclear weapons first against a non-nuclear state in any circumstances? Does that not tell you anything? Thatcher wouldn’t have done it. No PM would do it, and if they tried the Cabinet, MOD, or the military would stop them.
    No, it tells us most of you have far less balls than Thatcher and would have left us and our overseas territories ripe for foreign invasion without response
    No we wouldn't, because we could take back the Islands with a rowing boat of Chelsea Pensioners armed with popguns.

    I think that is where this tedious topic started...
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,431
    Foxy said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    M*A*S*H went on more than 3 times longer than the Korean War.



    But in this era of consuming media on demand, how can we say that anything 'went on too long'? Mash fans are probably still glad that those latter episodes exist. And thousands would love more Fawlty Towers, and of course barring someone inventing a time machine, it will never happen.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
    Hang on, I thought you had been banging on recently how NATO territory is a red line?

    “ many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.”

    Are you saying that NATO picks and chooses who it defends in NATO (news for Estonia and co to digest) or are you totally full of shit?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,817
    Sean_F said:

    I think it incredibly unlikely that Thatcher would have ordered a nuclear strike on Buenos Aires, had the Falklands campaign stalled. She might have ordered the sinking of any Argentine naval vessel that left port.

    That was the implicit threat in the Belgrano and it worked. Which is why all the nonsense about where it was heading at the time mattered not a jot. It was a f****** war, for god's sake and a damn near run thing it was too.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Andy_JS said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    How old is old?
    I thought I was old.

    Someone upthread was literally in the FCO during the Falklands War.

    I feel like I’m talking to those proverbial civil war widows who can remember playing a bit of how’s-your-father with Ulysses S Grant behind a haystack at Valley Forge.
    I start with the assumption that anyone splenetically commenting on political websites during the working day is about 78 years old

    This assumption has served me well
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
    I feel they didn’t explore sufficiently the comedy in collective punishment and the torture of SOE radio operators.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,253
    DavidL said:

    Incredibly the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city Melitopol, who was kidnapped by Russian forces last week, has been freed.

    President Zelenskyy speaking to him here on the phone.

    Another advisor said he was freed in a "special operation".


    https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1504187687791693834

    OMG.

    Can this be true?

    Putin is getting a total hiding in Ukr.

    Slava Ukraine!

    Ukrainian special forces have had an absolutely incredible war to date. Really, really well trained.
    1) What colour is their boathouse?
    2) Scullers or sweep oar specialists?
    3) What's their opinion on moving head ergos?
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,385
    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
    The real shame about Secret Army was the last episode, one of the very best of the series, was not shown on terrestrial TV. It wasn’t even on the dvd release.

    You Rang My Lord, as a spoof, was far better and only ran for four seasons.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    If you remember the considerable debate over the morality of sinking the Belgrano, Thatcher would have been worse than a pariah at home, too.
    We’d likely have handed her over to the Hague for trial.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,036
    theProle said:

    Wow

    Graham Stringer is joining Nigel Farage at a speaking event next week calling for a referendum on Net Zero

    https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1504145028800729096?t=kQfckmT45wtcvPOuqU-AvA&s=19

    He was interviewed by Farage on GB News recently. Very curious mixture of views but I wouldn't quite say he is a crank in the mould of Gisela Stuart or Kate Hoey. He also strongly supports HS2.
    NO MORE FUCKING REFERENDUMS!!!

    Perhaps we need a new party with no referendums as its one and only policy?

    But seriously, it is ridiculous to have a referendum on net zero. There are parties standing e.g. Reform or whatever this week's name is, who are against it. So people can vote for that if they really care.
    I'm going to disagree on this. There are sometimes big picture issues which need to be resolved, where the entire political class is united on a view, and the public aren't behind them.

    The EU was a case in point. Net Zero looks likely to be another area where the politicans decide on a policy that's pretty unpopular with a good chunk of the electorate, and just impose it on them anyway, by cosy consensus.

    We should really have a lot more referendums, and thus firmly keep clipping the wings of governments who don't to what the electorate want- the problem with the EU one wasn't that it was held, but that it was held 20 years too late. If it had been impossible for the UK to have become integrated into the EU because the voters had the opportunity to reject Maastricht/Nice/Lisbon/EU Constitution etc, then firstly we probably wouldn't have left, and secondly leaving would have been nearly as big a shock anyway as we wouldn't have ever become so deeply embedded.
    I agree. The Swiss do just fine with dozens of referenda every year.

    The important difference is that the people get to choose when they have them, through petitions, rather than politicians (except some issues which need automatic referenda).
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,431

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
    I feel they didn’t explore sufficiently the comedy in collective punishment and the torture of SOE radio operators.
    You obviously missed the episode in S5 when Rene and co. were locked in the Chateau for working with the resistance and had to escape dressed as Nuns.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
    Odd, you keep telling us Ukraine is not in NATO which is why we won't act and that we will only defend NATO countries.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Another good header, @Cyclefree .
    I was struck by how little reaction the story about what was effectively sexual assault of a schoolgirl by Met police, with the reported acquiescence of her school, got here.

    Though the fact that we’re teetering, and possibly edging away from the brink of armageddon does provide something of a distraction, it’s still distinctly uncomfortable.

    The school's behaviour was a disgrace. The teachers involved seem to have had no understanding of what safeguarding actually means or involves.
    Yes, I said upthread that was what shocked me most about the story.
    Sadly, the repulsive behaviour of the Met wasn’t a massive surprise.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    boulay said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
    Hang on, I thought you had been banging on recently how NATO territory is a red line?

    “ many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.”

    Are you saying that NATO picks and chooses who it defends in NATO (news for Estonia and co to digest) or are you totally full of shit?
    I would say I would hope NATO would defend the Baltic states from Putin.

    I would also say I cannot guarantee Biden and Boris and Macron will sacrifice thousands of US, French and UK soldiers if not worse in WW3 against Russia if Putin invades the Baltic states.

    I can probably guarantee that for western Europe but not beyond
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
    So - they’d have stepped aside and let them roll across Western Europe to get to us?

    Must admit, I hadn’t considered that one.
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 4,264
    edited March 2022
    Cyclefree said:

    Chameleon said:

    If there's one article you read about Ukraine this week, in light of the Mariupol theatre being bombed, it has to be this one, from the only two journalists in Mariupol: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-descends-into-despair-708cb8f4a171ce3f1c1b0b8d090e38e3

    That is a horrific article to read. But essential to do so.

    This is what war means.

    Putin is evil. I hope he dies an extremely painful death and rots in hell.
    I couldn't agree so more. Even worse, this is an image of the theatre before the attack today: https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1504186137186910217. They placed over 1000 vulnerable people in a big building in the middle of a park, far away from anywhere that could be even tangentially linked to military uses, and wrote 'children' in front and behind of it in big enough letters that they can be clearly seen from space. What did the Russians do? Went on a special sortie to demolish it. This can never be forgiven, it's a genocide plain and simple.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,556

    If anyone is tiring of tonight's ludicrous discussion may I point out that there's a rather good Tchaikovsky concert on R3?

    Probably not the 1812 Overture I assume.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Just to put on record, Are You Being Served, Hi-de-Hi, Allo Allo, and You Rang M’Lord are all horribly outdated and bloody brilliant.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,500
    Andy_JS said:

    If anyone is tiring of tonight's ludicrous discussion may I point out that there's a rather good Tchaikovsky concert on R3?

    Probably not the 1812 Overture I assume.
    And there’s a big Arsenal game on!

    😴
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    TimT said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    TimT said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    As someone who was in the FCO at the time, I'd just like to say that even a UK threat of nuclear weapons use against a non-nuclear state, let alone their actual use, was unthinkable in 1982.
    How do you know what Thatcher would have done had British conventional forces started to lose the War and her premiership then been at risk of ending in humiliation and British territory lost to invasion without using all means of defence at our disposal?
    He was in the FCO for goodness sake and his statement is factual as you would understand had you been around at the time
    He was not Thatcher was he and Thatcher would have decided not the FCO
    I absolutely would have not had any input into that decision, but you seem oblivious of the fact that the US only just supported our effort to retake the Falklands - we persuaded them by the skin of our teeth. We would have lost all US support for the war had we even hinted at using NW. And without the US helicopter and logistics support, our troops would not even have made it to the Falklands.

    So its time to put your ignorant arse on ignore.
    We got to the Falklands with our aircraft carriers and cruise liners who transported our troops.

    Not due to the US who were effectively little more than neutral in the campaign
    Wrong.

    I mean, just:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgiCechWNCo
    ... made a huge difference.

    (What are the odds The Only True Tory In History has no idea what I'm going on about?)
    @HYUFD go on, do you know what he is referring to because it was the first thing I thought of when you made that post. You are supposed to have a degree in history but you appear to know F All.
    Still not got back to Andy on this one @hyufd. Another one of your historical blunders. I assume you are still looking through Wikipedia to find out what he is talking about. Not a clue.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561

    Incredibly the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city Melitopol, who was kidnapped by Russian forces last week, has been freed.

    President Zelenskyy speaking to him here on the phone.

    Another advisor said he was freed in a "special operation".


    https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1504187687791693834

    Squeaky bum time for this lady:

    "The Russian occupied city of Melitpol has a new mayor who says more Russian TV channels must be broadcast through the Ukraine oblast for "more reliable information" about the Russia-Ukraine war that is closing on 20 days now.

    Halyna Danylchenko was installed as the "acting mayor" of Melitopol after former Mayor Ivan Fyodorov was abducted by Russian forces. In a video address, she urged locals to reconfigure their TV sets or digital devices to get more Russian channels."

    https://www.newsweek.com/new-mayor-occupied-ukraine-city-demands-russia-tv-true-information-1687578
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Andy_JS said:

    "France considering giving Corsica 'autonomy' as violent protests sweep island"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/16/france-considering-giving-corsica-autonomy-violent-protests/

    Fascinating. Corsica really should be independent. It is exceptionally French yet exceptionally non-French, at the same time

    They are the rudest people on earth
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    Nigelb said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    If you remember the considerable debate over the morality of sinking the Belgrano, Thatcher would have been worse than a pariah at home, too.
    We’d likely have handed her over to the Hague for trial.
    No we wouldn't as it was a war of self defence not invasion and her government had a majority
  • Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    How old is old?
    I thought I was old.

    Someone upthread was literally in the FCO during the Falklands War.

    I feel like I’m talking to those proverbial civil war widows who can remember playing a bit of how’s-your-father with Ulysses S Grant behind a haystack at Valley Forge.
    I start with the assumption that anyone splenetically commenting on political websites during the working day is about 78 years old

    This assumption has served me well
    I can affirm that since February !!!!
  • @Cyclefree - thank you again for a really good header.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    edited March 2022

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
    I feel they didn’t explore sufficiently the comedy in collective punishment and the torture of SOE radio operators.
    You obviously missed the episode in S5 when Rene and co. were locked in the Chateau for working with the resistance and had to escape dressed as Nuns.
    Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once...
    I must admit to Allo Allo as a guilty pleasure. Perhaps you had to grow up with endless WW2 dramas to get a lot of the jokes.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    Honestly, I am not sure who is sillier: @HYUFD or those engaging with his ludicrous nonsense.

    Just let it go guys!
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,078
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Yes, now we have progressed to Mrs Brown's Boys.
    Progressed?
    I just laughed so much I nearly choked.... That has never ever happened while watching MBB, so Thank You David!
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,385

    Just to put on record, Are You Being Served, Hi-de-Hi, Allo Allo, and You Rang M’Lord are all horribly outdated and bloody brilliant.

    As was It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

    You Rang My Lord is the very best of the Croft and Perry stuff for me. So brilliantly written. Excellent characters and very well acted with a real air of tragedy as well as comedy.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,078
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    Without wanting to go over the last thread all over again I looked up some stuff on the Falklands War regarding @HYUFD comment on it being easy.

    The US Navy assessed that a successful counter invasion was impossible

    Lord Craig stated that if just 6 of the 13 bomb fuses that failed because the Argentine Hawks were flying too low had detonated we would have lost

    And that is ignoring the threat of the exocets getting past the destroyers and frigates which suffered badly protecting the carriers.

    But hey ho just a cake walk.

    Right you want to restart this I can go on all evening and all night now if needed.

    None of that changes whatsoever my point that Thatcher was prepared to fight to retake the Falklands as Argentina did not have nuclear weapons unlike us and had a far weaker military like us. Hence we won the war and she would have continued to fight the war no matter what the cost.

    Sending a no fly zone into Ukraine against a Russia armed with nuclear weapons is however a totally different ball game
    Even had all our carriers been sunk and most of our destroyers and frigates been sunk (which they weren't and was highly unlikely) we could still have placed submarines armed with nuclear weapons off the coast off Argentina and refused to remove them until the Argentines withdrew
    Again showing your ignorance. Re our frigates and destroyers over 50% were hit. As per my previous reference frome some who actually knew what he was talking about if just 6 of the 13 bombs that failed to explode had done so we would have lost. So not highly unlikely at all, but nearly happened. Bizarrely we were lucky that the very brave Argentine Hawk pilots got too low. As it was 4 did sink.
    So 50% were not and most were not sunk and our carriers survived.

    Even if all 13 bombs had not gone off that did not mean we would have lost as we had nuclear weapons and Argentina did not.

    As I said we could have parked subs armed with nuclear missiles off the Argentine Coast and refused to remove them until Argentine forces withdrew from the Falkland Islands
    Again completely missed the point. All I objected to was you saying it was easy. Go on finally admit it wasn't easy. The US Navy thought it impossible. The head of the RAF thought that we would have lost if 6 of those ,13 bombs had exploded. If they had of exploded we would have lost over half our frigates and destroyers.

    Under no circumstances can that be described as easy.

    Go on admit it wasn't easy. That is all I am after. Be a man at admit you were wrong to say tha.
    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.
    Bonkers. I never said we should concede defeat. Don't know where you got that from. Once we were committed, we were committed. And I was in favour of us doing so. You just make stuff up.

    I have objected to one thing, you saying 3 times that the Falklands war was easy and you are so weak you can't admit that was a mistake. Pathetic.

    You are so feeble and weak that you are happy to insult the memory of those that fought and the government of the day than admit you were wrong.

    Shame on you.
    Yes you did.

    You were not prepared to use all methods at our disposal to free the Falklands. You effectively said if the war had started to go against our conventional forces we would automatically have lost.

    You restarted this debate not me, so stop whinging if you can't take the heat
    Go on stop keep avoiding the point. Admit you were wrong in saying the , Falklands war was easy.

    Stop being a pathetic whimp and man up.
    I am not ever going to concede to you so tough.

    My original point stands absolutely we would in the end win the war with Argentina as we had a bigger and more effective military than them and nuclear weapons unlike them.

    Intervening against a nuclear armed Russia over Ukraine however is a different matter
    So you stick by your 3 statements that the Falklands War was easy.

    You are an absolute disgrace. I can't imagine any Tory would support your view.
    @HYUFD is a dude and a mensch
    Also a dullard.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083

    Someone mentioned earlier Putin's Praetorian Guard of 20,000 men.

    History tells us that the biggest threat comes from.....

    IDEA!

    @rcs1000 I need a float organised, quick. $30 Billion. A limited company to engage in a hostile take-over.....

    I figure $1m for each and everyone in Putin's guard should do the job. The other 10 Billion is for expenses - need to eat while we take over Russia......

    Will you take a check?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Cicero said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Yes, now we have progressed to Mrs Brown's Boys.
    Progressed?
    I just laughed so much I nearly choked.... That has never ever happened while watching MBB, so Thank You David!
    Whenever I encounter Mrs Brown's Boys I stare at it with slack-jawed amazement, like Darwin encountering the Early Patagonians

    Like, can TV really be THIS bad?

    Yes; it can
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    HYUFD said:

    boulay said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
    Hang on, I thought you had been banging on recently how NATO territory is a red line?

    “ many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.”

    Are you saying that NATO picks and chooses who it defends in NATO (news for Estonia and co to digest) or are you totally full of shit?
    I would say I would hope NATO would defend the Baltic states from Putin.

    I would also say I cannot guarantee Biden and Boris and Macron will sacrifice thousands of US, French and UK soldiers if not worse in WW3 against Russia if Putin invades the Baltic states.

    I can probably guarantee that for western Europe but not beyond
    So you can “probably guarantee” that if the Russians invade Western Europe then the same nations that will not sacrifice thousands of soldiers for other parts of Europe will suddenly just jump to it for “Western Europe”?

    I’m thinking that your red line in this instance would be Belgium? It’s worked out really well twice before so we might as well….

    I find it laughable how you have been taking a position so strongly that NATO territory is a red line for two weeks against the idea of an NFZ but when it blows your other arguments it’s suddenly not a red line.

    Heathener must be laughing her mask off.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,028
    Hmm.. multiple explosions being reported in Belarus on Twitter

    ..could either be the false flag event intelligence was warning about to get them into the war, or something else..
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    Without wanting to go over the last thread all over again I looked up some stuff on the Falklands War regarding @HYUFD comment on it being easy.

    The US Navy assessed that a successful counter invasion was impossible

    Lord Craig stated that if just 6 of the 13 bomb fuses that failed because the Argentine Hawks were flying too low had detonated we would have lost

    And that is ignoring the threat of the exocets getting past the destroyers and frigates which suffered badly protecting the carriers.

    But hey ho just a cake walk.

    Right you want to restart this I can go on all evening and all night now if needed.

    None of that changes whatsoever my point that Thatcher was prepared to fight to retake the Falklands as Argentina did not have nuclear weapons unlike us and had a far weaker military like us. Hence we won the war and she would have continued to fight the war no matter what the cost.

    Sending a no fly zone into Ukraine against a Russia armed with nuclear weapons is however a totally different ball game
    Even had all our carriers been sunk and most of our destroyers and frigates been sunk (which they weren't and was highly unlikely) we could still have placed submarines armed with nuclear weapons off the coast off Argentina and refused to remove them until the Argentines withdrew
    Again showing your ignorance. Re our frigates and destroyers over 50% were hit. As per my previous reference frome some who actually knew what he was talking about if just 6 of the 13 bombs that failed to explode had done so we would have lost. So not highly unlikely at all, but nearly happened. Bizarrely we were lucky that the very brave Argentine Hawk pilots got too low. As it was 4 did sink.
    So 50% were not and most were not sunk and our carriers survived.

    Even if all 13 bombs had not gone off that did not mean we would have lost as we had nuclear weapons and Argentina did not.

    As I said we could have parked subs armed with nuclear missiles off the Argentine Coast and refused to remove them until Argentine forces withdrew from the Falkland Islands
    Again completely missed the point. All I objected to was you saying it was easy. Go on finally admit it wasn't easy. The US Navy thought it impossible. The head of the RAF thought that we would have lost if 6 of those ,13 bombs had exploded. If they had of exploded we would have lost over half our frigates and destroyers.

    Under no circumstances can that be described as easy.

    Go on admit it wasn't easy. That is all I am after. Be a man at admit you were wrong to say tha.
    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.
    Bonkers. I never said we should concede defeat. Don't know where you got that from. Once we were committed, we were committed. And I was in favour of us doing so. You just make stuff up.

    I have objected to one thing, you saying 3 times that the Falklands war was easy and you are so weak you can't admit that was a mistake. Pathetic.

    You are so feeble and weak that you are happy to insult the memory of those that fought and the government of the day than admit you were wrong.

    Shame on you.
    Yes you did.

    You were not prepared to use all methods at our disposal to free the Falklands. You effectively said if the war had started to go against our conventional forces we would automatically have lost.

    You restarted this debate not me, so stop whinging if you can't take the heat
    And I said you are polite the other day !!!!!

    Your whole commentary on the Falklands was error strewn, fake, and frankly an unbelievable ascertain we would nuke Buenos Aires

    I was discussing the Falklands war in detail with constituents in the1983 election, were you? - because if you had said half of what you have said you would have had a very angry response
    Had you effectively handed over the Falklands to Argentina had the conventional war not started to go in our favour I am sure you too would have met with an angry response
    But the Thatcher Government was well started on handing them over to Argentina. Secret talks, running down the forces both locally and more generally ... the V-bombers, the assault ships, much else was being closed down, including Portsmouth Dockyard. If General Galtieri had been a little more patient ...
    There were talks, so what, at most they would have involved some powersharing and even that unlikely. Not wholesale handing of British territory to Argentina
    Of course, you weren't awarte of anything more than the Flowerpot Men or the Magic Roundabout.But there was a hell of a lot of criticism of Mr N. Ridley at the FO, and Lord Carrington actually wanted to resign from MoD.

    Yes.

    A Tory minister. Wanting to resign for fouling up.

    Just imagine how unutterably bad that was.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,218
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
    I feel they didn’t explore sufficiently the comedy in collective punishment and the torture of SOE radio operators.
    You obviously missed the episode in S5 when Rene and co. were locked in the Chateau for working with the resistance and had to escape dressed as Nuns.
    Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once...
    I must admit to Allo Allo as a guilty pleasure. Perhaps you had to grow up with endless WW2 dramas to get a lot of the jokes.
    Allo Allo dubbed into Spanish is even more surreal. Not sure that my then neighbours or colleagues quite got the point.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    edited March 2022
    Taz said:

    Just to put on record, Are You Being Served, Hi-de-Hi, Allo Allo, and You Rang M’Lord are all horribly outdated and bloody brilliant.

    As was It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

    You Rang My Lord is the very best of the Croft and Perry stuff for me. So brilliantly written. Excellent characters and very well acted with a real air of tragedy as well as comedy.
    Yes, I forgot IAHHM.

    I know it is no longer permitted in polite society to say it, but I saw the first episode on YouTube a few years back and I thought it held up well.

    We loved all that stuff when I was growing up.

    But then, as a Anglo-NZ-Indian-Scots family with a tinge of Flemish, we weren’t overly obsessed with people’s race or indeed sexuality.

    It’s possible we were unusually enlightened in the working class suburbs of Auckland in the 1980s.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    edited March 2022
    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Yes, now we have progressed to Mrs Brown's Boys.
    Progressed?
    I just laughed so much I nearly choked.... That has never ever happened while watching MBB, so Thank You David!
    Whenever I encounter Mrs Brown's Boys I stare at it with slack-jawed amazement, like Darwin encountering the Early Patagonians

    Like, can TV really be THIS bad?

    Yes; it can
    You need the really bad stuff to make the good stuff look even better.

    Disclaimer, I have only seen one episode of Mrs Brown's Boys, so I'd like to say I cannot judge it. I'd like to say that.

    Edit: That said, a Netflix description for a series today sounds like it would give any show a run for its money.

    After marrying a mysterious man who claimed he could make her dog immortal, a celebrated vegan restaurateur finds her life veering off the rails
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627
    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    New satellite images from @Maxar Technologies show that on Monday, the word "children" was spelled out outside the theater that the Mariupol City Council said was bombed on Wednesday. https://twitter.com/dmytrokuleba/status/1504141027879313412 https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1504200008660307979/photo/1
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,028

    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened

    Could be. Or the Belarus military are staging some sort of mutiny (wishful thinking)

    Oh - and Liverpool are a bit shit at the moment
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened

    Dear God, this sounds bad

    I hope I am wrong

    But if I had to guess right now I'd say Putin is trying to cue up a pan-European war
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,028
    Leon said:

    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened

    Dear God, this sounds bad

    I hope I am wrong

    But if I had to guess right now I'd say Putin is trying to cue up a pan-European war
    You’ve only got to watch his increasingly deranged speeches to realise that is a real possibility

    I still can’t see how he’s satisfied finding a “peace deal”
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    boulay said:

    HYUFD said:

    boulay said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    I shouldn't have read this whilst taking a drink. Nearly choked to death.

    And I thought I was going off on one with the alternate history ideas. Apparently, Andropov , Chernenko, or Gorbachev would have seen this and somehow either decided to go charging across the German plains, France, and Belgium just to get his teeth into us, or somehow bypassed all of them just to attack the UK alone. I don't know - send hordes of landing craft all the way from Archangelsk?
    They might, we were effectively an enemy state at the time.

    We would have hoped NATO powers might have intervened to stop the Russian invasion fleet and paratroops but there are no guarantees given how weak we would have looked, many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.

    NATO is useful but at the end of the day the only nation you can count on to defend your own is your own, as Ukraine has discovered
    Hang on, I thought you had been banging on recently how NATO territory is a red line?

    “ many NATO powers may have closed ranks and just left is to it rather the going to WW3.”

    Are you saying that NATO picks and chooses who it defends in NATO (news for Estonia and co to digest) or are you totally full of shit?
    I would say I would hope NATO would defend the Baltic states from Putin.

    I would also say I cannot guarantee Biden and Boris and Macron will sacrifice thousands of US, French and UK soldiers if not worse in WW3 against Russia if Putin invades the Baltic states.

    I can probably guarantee that for western Europe but not beyond
    So you can “probably guarantee” that if the Russians invade Western Europe then the same nations that will not sacrifice thousands of soldiers for other parts of Europe will suddenly just jump to it for “Western Europe”?

    I’m thinking that your red line in this instance would be Belgium? It’s worked out really well twice before so we might as well….

    I find it laughable how you have been taking a position so strongly that NATO territory is a red line for two weeks against the idea of an NFZ but when it blows your other arguments it’s suddenly not a red line.

    Heathener must be laughing her mask off.
    Given France and the UK and Germany are literally in Western Europe then if we did not defend ourselves we would literally be under Russian occupation.

    So yes that is a likely definite red line, however beyond that is more hope than certainty
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "France considering giving Corsica 'autonomy' as violent protests sweep island"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/16/france-considering-giving-corsica-autonomy-violent-protests/

    Fascinating. Corsica really should be independent. It is exceptionally French yet exceptionally non-French, at the same time

    They are the rudest people on earth
    Rude doesn’t describe them - i’d say “coarse”.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    Taz said:

    Just to put on record, Are You Being Served, Hi-de-Hi, Allo Allo, and You Rang M’Lord are all horribly outdated and bloody brilliant.

    As was It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

    You Rang My Lord is the very best of the Croft and Perry stuff for me. So brilliantly written. Excellent characters and very well acted with a real air of tragedy as well as comedy.
    Yes, I forgot IAHHM.

    I know it is no longer permitted in polite society to say it, but I saw the first episode on YouTube a few years back and I thought it held up well.

    We loved all that stuff when I was growing up.

    But then, as a Anglo-NZ-Indian-Scots family with a tinge of Flemish, we weren’t overly obsessed with people’s race or indeed sexuality.

    It’s possible we were unusually enlightened in the working class suburbs of Auckland in the 1980s.
    The final episode is a great bit of telly.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,285

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    Police Squad?

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    That's all comedy! I admire how prolific they were. Find a winning formula and grind it out - if you get a shit series, sort it out in the next one. Look at how long Friends went on - in the US they don't kill a cash cow.
    Police Squad?
    I don't think I've seen it.
    To give you a flavour (or possibly flavor) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=het1kl-A8qw

    TL;DW it was a series of six episodes starting many of the character's who later appeared in the (to my mind not as good) Naked Gun series.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,431
    Taz said:

    Just to put on record, Are You Being Served, Hi-de-Hi, Allo Allo, and You Rang M’Lord are all horribly outdated and bloody brilliant.

    As was It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

    You Rang My Lord is the very best of the Croft and Perry stuff for me. So brilliantly written. Excellent characters and very well acted with a real air of tragedy as well as comedy.
    I liked the episode of YRML where the put upon char lady's dreams all come true.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    .
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    If you remember the considerable debate over the morality of sinking the Belgrano, Thatcher would have been worse than a pariah at home, too.
    We’d likely have handed her over to the Hague for trial.
    No we wouldn't as it was a war of self defence not invasion and her government had a majority
    It’s pointless arguing.
    You were not a voter at the time, so are utterly clueless.
    And more commentary from you on this is just white noise.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,253

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:



    kle4 said:

    Cicero said:

    Jesus Christ, people on here are old.

    You may be surprised how quickly time goes by.
    Unlike the show 'As Time Goes By', which went by very slowly.
    One of those successful “unfunny” comedies so popular in the 80s and 90s.

    ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ was the daddy, though.
    Don’t Wait Up, George Layton’s Comedy was of that ilk and Allo Allo certainly outstayed its welcome.
    I think Allo Allo is hilarious and holds up well. A lot of the comedy in the 80's and 90's was very well written. I also find it easier to laugh at things with a laughter track.
    I really liked Allo Allo but, like with Are you Being Served, it probably ran for two too many seasons. They just run out of ideas and repeat gags and catchphrases.

    Well, it was a spoof on one of the best drama series the BBC ever made, and once they’d stolen the spoofable plot lines from its three series, they were bereft of new ideas.
    I feel they didn’t explore sufficiently the comedy in collective punishment and the torture of SOE radio operators.
    You obviously missed the episode in S5 when Rene and co. were locked in the Chateau for working with the resistance and had to escape dressed as Nuns.
    Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once...
    I must admit to Allo Allo as a guilty pleasure. Perhaps you had to grow up with endless WW2 dramas to get a lot of the jokes.
    Allo Allo dubbed into Spanish is even more surreal. Not sure that my then neighbours or colleagues quite got the point.
    Faulty Towers is another strange one. You read the premise written down.... but.....

    Strangely, my South American relatives adored Manuel. My wife was quite upset to hear that Andrew Sachs had died.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052
    edited March 2022
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    If you remember the considerable debate over the morality of sinking the Belgrano, Thatcher would have been worse than a pariah at home, too.
    We’d likely have handed her over to the Hague for trial.
    No we wouldn't as it was a war of self defence not invasion and her government had a majority
    For about 5 seconds had the PM made a bonkers nuclear threat….
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened

    Dear God, this sounds bad

    I hope I am wrong

    But if I had to guess right now I'd say Putin is trying to cue up a pan-European war
    You’ve only got to watch his increasingly deranged speeches to realise that is a real possibility

    I still can’t see how he’s satisfied finding a “peace deal”
    I'm afraid to say I agree

    There is now a total disjunct between the words of Putin's diplomats and underlings, and what Putin says himself. Every Russian Who Isn't Putin now speaks of peace, Putin grows still more unhinged and aggressive

    It is classic End-of-Tyrant stuff, perhaps the question is: will Putin succeed in destroying the world before he goes?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627

    Leon said:

    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened

    Dear God, this sounds bad

    I hope I am wrong

    But if I had to guess right now I'd say Putin is trying to cue up a pan-European war
    You’ve only got to watch his increasingly deranged speeches to realise that is a real possibility

    I still can’t see how he’s satisfied finding a “peace deal”
    The problem is that a peace deal still doesn't help him get out of the domestic hole he's dug for himself, so escalation in one form or another is his only option.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    If you remember the considerable debate over the morality of sinking the Belgrano, Thatcher would have been worse than a pariah at home, too.
    We’d likely have handed her over to the Hague for trial.
    No we wouldn't as it was a war of self defence not invasion and her government had a majority
    You weren't there and have no idea what you are talking about. The sinking of the Belgrano was a huge deal and nearly did for Mrs T. It goes to show how this was a limited action to the Falklands. In an all out war this would have been a normal act of war, but to many it was beyond the pale. Yet it was insignificant compared to launching a nuke. If she nearly didn't survive sinking a cruiser that was borderline exclusion zone how do you think launch a nuke would have gone down.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    edited March 2022
    I know the general point he is making, but out of context the chap from the Red Cross quoted as 'He said the lack of trust between the warring sides was "the biggest problem" in rescuing civilians stuck between front lines' comes across as a statement of the obvious to say the least.

    And the Russians do not disappoint in reaction to Biden's comments about Putin, apparently labelling them 'unforgivable'. If only Biden had invaded another country instead (in his term as President that is).

    I assume it is a Russian truism that 'sticks and stones and bombs and shells and bullets and the police and the secret police and other miscellaneous weaponry may hurt you, but words hurt even more'.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,523
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    There's absolutely no way that Willie Whitelaw would have been ok with using nukes on Argentina and he would have told Thatcher that and she trusted his advice implicitly.

    There was no way Thatcher would have been OK with losing the Falklands to Argentine invasion.

    Had she lost the war her premiership would have been over anyway so Whitelaw's advice would not have been much use as her period in No 10 would have been over and ended in humiliation for her and for the UK
    I'll let you into a little secret, Thatcher would have rather have lost an election than order an disproportionate use of nuclear weapons.

    She would have realised it would have made the UK a pariah nation of decades, if not centuries.
    The loss of the Falklands to Argentine invasion would have left us so weak we would have been ripe for invasion and may well have faced a Soviet invasion within a few years.

    On a forced choice any nation's leader should prefer being feared and reviled as a last resort than being weak and incapable of defending the nation and its territory
    TWIT
    Stop being so polite
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,249

    LOL.

    Life comes at you pretty hard at times, I would have loved to have seen Steve Gibson's reaction to this news.

    Chelsea are set to play any remaining home Champions League fixtures behind closed doors after owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the EU, The Athletic understands.

    https://theathletic.com/news/chelsea-to-play-champions-league-games-without-fans-after-eu-sanctions/YRuE8UbFiFHG/

    Why should their opponents be penalised by not being able to sell tickets?
    Self sacrifices often involve some sacrifices.
    I would go with sale of tickets and all proceeds go to Ukrainian charities
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    Without wanting to go over the last thread all over again I looked up some stuff on the Falklands War regarding @HYUFD comment on it being easy.

    The US Navy assessed that a successful counter invasion was impossible

    Lord Craig stated that if just 6 of the 13 bomb fuses that failed because the Argentine Hawks were flying too low had detonated we would have lost

    And that is ignoring the threat of the exocets getting past the destroyers and frigates which suffered badly protecting the carriers.

    But hey ho just a cake walk.

    Right you want to restart this I can go on all evening and all night now if needed.

    None of that changes whatsoever my point that Thatcher was prepared to fight to retake the Falklands as Argentina did not have nuclear weapons unlike us and had a far weaker military like us. Hence we won the war and she would have continued to fight the war no matter what the cost.

    Sending a no fly zone into Ukraine against a Russia armed with nuclear weapons is however a totally different ball game
    Even had all our carriers been sunk and most of our destroyers and frigates been sunk (which they weren't and was highly unlikely) we could still have placed submarines armed with nuclear weapons off the coast off Argentina and refused to remove them until the Argentines withdrew
    Again showing your ignorance. Re our frigates and destroyers over 50% were hit. As per my previous reference frome some who actually knew what he was talking about if just 6 of the 13 bombs that failed to explode had done so we would have lost. So not highly unlikely at all, but nearly happened. Bizarrely we were lucky that the very brave Argentine Hawk pilots got too low. As it was 4 did sink.
    So 50% were not and most were not sunk and our carriers survived.

    Even if all 13 bombs had not gone off that did not mean we would have lost as we had nuclear weapons and Argentina did not.

    As I said we could have parked subs armed with nuclear missiles off the Argentine Coast and refused to remove them until Argentine forces withdrew from the Falkland Islands
    Again completely missed the point. All I objected to was you saying it was easy. Go on finally admit it wasn't easy. The US Navy thought it impossible. The head of the RAF thought that we would have lost if 6 of those ,13 bombs had exploded. If they had of exploded we would have lost over half our frigates and destroyers.

    Under no circumstances can that be described as easy.

    Go on admit it wasn't easy. That is all I am after. Be a man at admit you were wrong to say tha.
    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.
    Bonkers. I never said we should concede defeat. Don't know where you got that from. Once we were committed, we were committed. And I was in favour of us doing so. You just make stuff up.

    I have objected to one thing, you saying 3 times that the Falklands war was easy and you are so weak you can't admit that was a mistake. Pathetic.

    You are so feeble and weak that you are happy to insult the memory of those that fought and the government of the day than admit you were wrong.

    Shame on you.
    Yes you did.

    You were not prepared to use all methods at our disposal to free the Falklands. You effectively said if the war had started to go against our conventional forces we would automatically have lost.

    You restarted this debate not me, so stop whinging if you can't take the heat
    And I said you are polite the other day !!!!!

    Your whole commentary on the Falklands was error strewn, fake, and frankly an unbelievable ascertain we would nuke Buenos Aires

    I was discussing the Falklands war in detail with constituents in the1983 election, were you? - because if you had said half of what you have said you would have had a very angry response
    Had you effectively handed over the Falklands to Argentina had the conventional war not started to go in our favour I am sure you too would have met with an angry response
    But the Thatcher Government was well started on handing them over to Argentina. Secret talks, running down the forces both locally and more generally ... the V-bombers, the assault ships, much else was being closed down, including Portsmouth Dockyard. If General Galtieri had been a little more patient ...
    There were talks, so what, at most they would have involved some powersharing and even that unlikely. Not wholesale handing of British territory to Argentina
    Of course, you weren't awarte of anything more than the Flowerpot Men or the Magic Roundabout.But there was a hell of a lot of criticism of Mr N. Ridley at the FO, and Lord Carrington actually wanted to resign from MoD.

    Yes.

    A Tory minister. Wanting to resign for fouling up.

    Just imagine how unutterably bad that was.
    Those were the days, when people resigned for things they were responsible for even if it wasn’t their fault. That distinction seems to have vanished.

    (Carrington did resign as Foreign Sec didn’t he?)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    There haven't been any further details about this so it could just be sonic booms misreported as explosions.

    https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1504194054585831429

    @HannaLiubakova
    Massive explosions in a number of cities in #Belarus. Residents of Baranavichy, Luninets, Stolin, Hantsavichy, Slutsk, Kletsk and other cities reported sounds similar to explosions. We are trying to understand what happened

    Dear God, this sounds bad

    I hope I am wrong

    But if I had to guess right now I'd say Putin is trying to cue up a pan-European war
    You’ve only got to watch his increasingly deranged speeches to realise that is a real possibility

    I still can’t see how he’s satisfied finding a “peace deal”
    The problem is that a peace deal still doesn't help him get out of the domestic hole he's dug for himself, so escalation in one form or another is his only option.
    Yes, if I were Putin, I would escalate. It is the only option, if you are a lunatic narcissist sociopathic dictator

    He is near-certain to fall, now, if he sues for any kind of peace, because any peace means degrading poverty for Russia, and zero glory
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,385
    Foxy said:

    Taz said:

    Just to put on record, Are You Being Served, Hi-de-Hi, Allo Allo, and You Rang M’Lord are all horribly outdated and bloody brilliant.

    As was It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

    You Rang My Lord is the very best of the Croft and Perry stuff for me. So brilliantly written. Excellent characters and very well acted with a real air of tragedy as well as comedy.
    Yes, I forgot IAHHM.

    I know it is no longer permitted in polite society to say it, but I saw the first episode on YouTube a few years back and I thought it held up well.

    We loved all that stuff when I was growing up.

    But then, as a Anglo-NZ-Indian-Scots family with a tinge of Flemish, we weren’t overly obsessed with people’s race or indeed sexuality.

    It’s possible we were unusually enlightened in the working class suburbs of Auckland in the 1980s.
    The final episode is a great bit of telly.
    Yes, it’s sublime. Stripped of his power the Sgt Major is rather a feeble figure and the former troops don’t have it in them to give him a piece of their mind. I’d like to think he had his happy ever after with his son and his mother.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,218
    Nigelb said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:


    Nope. That was absolutely the point. You were willing to concede defeat.

    Defeat never needed to be conceded as we had a bigger military than Argentina and nuclear weapons unlike them. Thatcher knew that hence she went to war.

    You could have gone through every war in history as to hypotheticals which might have given it a different course, so what.

    Do you think the Americans would have "allowed" us to strike a city like Cordoba with a nuclear weapon?

    The Americans would have suffered an appalling political backlash throughout Latin America and I'm quite sure Reagan, for all his Anglophilia, would have been strongly advised by his administration the nuclear destruction of a Latin American city would be a catastrophe.

    I suspect, had we got to that point, American political and economic pressure would have been applied to BOTH London and Buenos Aires to broker a diplomatic solution.
    Who cares what the Americans did. We defend our territory at all costs, the Falklands was our territory.

    If the Americans refused to respect that they were not true allies anyway.

    Of course the UN did pressure both sides for a diplomatic solution and if the Argentines had withdrawn their forces from the Falklands one could have been found without further escalation
    Just so I'm clear - if Washington had told us in the event of launching a nuclear attack on Argentina, they (Washington) would impose punitive economic sanctions on the UK, you would still have incinerated Cordoba.

    The worldwide economic and diplomatic consequences of such a course of action would have been extreme - we might well have been thrown out of both NATO and the EEC. The pictures of the incinerated ruins of Cordoba would have been broadcast round the world and would have led to huge sympathy for the Argentines.

    The economic impact would have been no less severe with a run on sterling and capital flight from the UK leaving us exposed to inflation and renewed unemployment.

    Have you forgotten the extent to which American economic pressure forced both us and the French to stand down in Suez in 1956?

    Thatcher's Britain would have been as much a pariah state as Putin's Russia is now.
    If you remember the considerable debate over the morality of sinking the Belgrano, Thatcher would have been worse than a pariah at home, too.
    We’d likely have handed her over to the Hague for trial.
    Put it another way.

    The Soviet Union didn't fire nukes, even in its Evil Empire phase.

    The USA didn't fire nukes in Vietnam.

    Crass Putin isn't using them now.

    There is no way that the UK could have used its nuclear weapons in the Falklands without becoming, unambiguously, The Baddies. There's no way of using them without turning civilians into radioactive ash.

    There's a whole episode of Yes, Prime Minister setting this out. If They have them, We need to have them. But only to fire second in a bit of game theory. To use them first is to be a nation-sized suicide bomber.

    Maggie, right to the end, had the class to recognise this. She wouldn't have escalated a war to nuclear level in an attempt to save her Premiership, because it wouldn't have worked.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,523
    mwadams said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD is a keen history student.

    He has seen a grainy archival clip of noted activist Kenny Everett suggesting we nuke Russia and the standing ovation given by the Tory faithful — and drawn the wrong conclusion.

    My comments would have been mild compared to those of most Tory delegates at Tory conferences, certainly in the 1980s
    I went to the conferences at the time, did you
    If HYUFD is representative of the current Tory party I'm glad I left it 10 years ago. It is a very strange perspective on what the party was, and how Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet prosecuted the Falklands war, but, I think, illuminating.
    I am obviously not a member of the Tory party but HYUFD's opinions do not in any way represent any Tory I have ever come across. I genuinely believe, between beating up Spanish Grannies, sending tanks in to stop the Scots voting and nuking Argentina, he is deranged.
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