The Falklands was at best an intelligence failure of the highest order, at worst willful negligence for political gain. I'm no conspiracist (if that's even a word), so I'll opt for huge intelligence failure. You're right, one nuclear sub in the area would have prevented any invasion and there was plenty of warning - South Georgia might have been one obvious hint. Thatcher's government failed spectacularly to do it's job and then relied on the unbelievable courage and skill of the armed forces to fix the error. Then Thatcher basked in the glory that was not hers.

As for the miners, Arthur Scargill was called "insane" by the coal board and the government when he told everyone that 30 pits and 30,000 jobs would go in the mining industry. He was actually well off the mark, the number was far higher than that.
We produced the cheapest deep mined coal in the world and our island is made of the stuff. A simple tarrif on coal subsidised by the country exporting it would have secured our industry, but as they were going to sell off electricity generation and supply to their business chums that would not have been attractive as it would have meant they couldn't rack up the enormous profits they were all looking forward to. So, sacrifice the miners - they were all Northerners anyway.

How many PMs have had a State funeral? I recall Churchill's and for obvious reasons that was fair enough. But, why would Thatcher get one? Falklands, war on the Unions or what? I can't see why she would merit one above certain other PMs.

Well I'm definitely interested in your views on this as you were in the Navy at the time, as I'm interested in the Falklands war and I've read quite a bit about it.

I went through newspaper reports of the period leading up to the conflict to see what was being reported in the press at the time and there was indeed some 'sabre rattling' from the Argentinians and Callaghan was speaking up in the Commons about taking some preventative action like the action you mention. In fact as I understand it, the initial plan from the government was to send HMS Endurance to South Georgia because some Argentinian scrap metal merchants had turned up and planted an Argentinian flag there, but Galtieri insisted their actions had nothing to do with the Argentinian government and so they changed their minds. Endurance was set to be taken out of service in the Defence Review (it was a similar situation to now)

However other material that I have read said that the Endurance was quite lightly armed and would not have been able to stop an invasion, in fact if it had been at Port Stanley when the Argentinians wanted to invade they would have probably targeted and sunk it. As for a nuclear sub I don't know how effective it could have been, is a sub effective against landing boats? Also the difference between 1977 and 1982 was Galtieri was in charge of Argentina and he was much more aggressive and belligerent, he had calculated (with reasonable logic) that the UK couldn't maintain a successful military campaign from aircraft carriers 8000 miles from home when he could launch air strikes on them from the comfort of mainland Argentina.

Still regarding the failure to act on appropriate intelligence I think you have a point indeed Lord Carrington resigned as Foreign Secretary straight away because he felt he had miscalculated. But still when it comes to who was responsible for the death of servicemen (on both sides) that was not Thatcher that was Galtieri. Whatever could have been done differently with hindsight, responding better to the indicators that something was afoot, at the end of the day it was Galtieri who ordered an invasion of the islands and then would not withdraw despite international moves to avoid the conflict (including from a US government friendly to Galtieri because he was anti-Communist). He took the gamble that the British would not have the ability to remove his troops and so insisted on going through with his illegal invasion. Then more lives were lost in the land battle because he ordered his troops to keep on fighting after the Paras had landed and taken Goose Green, he had the attitude that his conscripts were cannon fodder so they should die for the honour of Argentina and take as many Brits with them as possible.

As for the electoral benefit this is another thing where I think history has distorted the reality at the time. The Defence Secretary John Nott was apprehensive about the capacity to win the war, one foreign secretary resigned and then Francis Pym came in and he tried to get the Cabinet to support a peace treaty to avoid the conflict (proposed by the Americans) that would have signed away sovereignty of the islands and left all the chips in Argentina's favour if they wanted to reinvade. Thatcher had to battle her own government to continue with the military operation because her own government felt the war was a bad idea and would destroy her as PM. So this was definitely not something that Thatcher could see as a vote winner. What would have happened if the Argentinians had hit our aircraft carriers with their Exocets or if they had got the height right when bombing our landing fleet so the fuses had gone off? It would have been a military disaster and Thatcher would have been forced to resign.

In the 1983 election the Conservatives deliberately did not bring up the Falklands (although admittedly some of the right wing tabloids made out Maggie to be the hero rather than the UK forces) in fact part of that campaign she was on the back foot because the left wing broadsheets and the BBC were making a big meal out of the sinking of the Belgrano, Denis Healey said that she was glorying in slaughter and Neil Kinnock said that its a shame that to prove the PM had guts some people had to leave their guts in Goose Green.

I reckon the idea that Thatcher won the 1983 election because of the Falklands is a myth, the real reason she got a massive majority was because the Alliance party were quite strong (they polled nearly 25%) and that split the anti-Thatcher vote, add to this the fact that Labour at the time were quite weak and Michael Foot not really seen as a credible PM, the Tories picked up easy seats where the Alliance had split the vote and pushed Labour into second. I know the polls had Thatcher well behind in 1981 but that happens often in mid terms, she was well behind in 1985 as well after the miners strike and come 1987 she won another landslide majority, and there was no Falklands factor there...

To be honest, miners were always moaning about it being an awful job and how dangerous it was (when at the time it was nowhere year as dangerous to life as working in the building trade). So, I'm sure in the long term it may have been for the best?

Well I agree with the point on unemployment and the same has happened this time round, in the 2010 election we heard a lot about Labour's toxic legacy on youth unemployment, the figures since then have only gone one way. It says everything that now the shockingly high figures are the highest since 1996, which was the last year of Tory government.

The Chancellor that said unemployment was a price worth paying was Norman Lamont in John Major's early days. What he meant was in the context of inflation, it is easier to get inflation down when unemployment is high because it is a brake on wage demands. And once inflation is down it is easier to keep it down because when people expect inflation to be lower, wage demands are lower. So he was probably meaning that you can get inflation down now in the period of high unemployment and it will then be easier to keep it down, but yes the fact he called it a "price worth paying" revealed a man well out of touch with the realities of unemployment on an ordinary family.

Not much chance of that TBH, they were kept further back than the main fleet and any plane launched Excocet would have had to negotiate itself past a series of destroyers and frigates, which would have been hit first (as they were). Excocet is a crude missile that finds a target rather than being given a target, in fact we were around 800m from the Atlantic Conveyor when she was hit and rather than her being the 'target' she was unfortunate to be a slow moving merchantman which could not turn to narrow her profile and therefore became the biggest available target.

The biggest mistake Galtieri made was not to wait 6 months until we had sold Hermes to India and Invincible to Australia, if he had, we would have been knackered. How history repeats itself, the proposed dismantling of our fixed wing capability in 1982 and now again in 2012 and the one common denominator is that the party of 'defence' is in power !!!!

Also, taking out the politics and speaking as a (former) sailor, the Belgrano was always a legitimate target IMO, she was an enemy warship at sea. It matters not one iota the direction she was moving, ships change direction at a moments notice, she should have been sunk the minute she was spotted.

So thats why they arranged the fleet in a ring with the carriers at the centre, is it that you have to launch the Exocet from distance and send it flat across the surface, ie you can't just fly over the top of the outside ones and then send it flat down on the carriers...?

I agree with you on the Belgrano I thought it was just troublemakers trying to pin a "war crime" on Thatcher for sinking an enemy ship, it could easily have hung around outside the exclusion zone for 'safety' from attack while other ships came round the other side and then both come in on our fleet in a pincer movement (which is what I understand Sandy Woodward thought was happening). The Argentinians didn't respect UK sovereignty over the Falklands when they landed troops so they can't complain that we attacked a ship outside the exclusion zone.

As an aside what do you think would happen now if the Argentinians tried it on again, I've seen some scare stories in the media saying the UK wouldn't have the capacity to defend the Falklands any more, but a (fairly recent) ex squaddie I know says thats a load of crap, the Falklands is much more heavily defended now than it was in '82 and also the Argentinian military has had a very small budget since the mid 1980s as the government fears the military being too powerful as it has a history of launching coups, so their equipment has not advanced from where it was in the early 1980s. Also he assures me that the fact we have four Typhoons providing air defence of the island is going to be a serious problem for the Argentinians who will have to take them on with ageing Mirage jets.

Cameron bowing to pressure from the Tory base. Her popularity in certain quarters can't be denied, just as the opposite is equally true. It'd be best not to, for a whole host of reasons, IMO.

It was Blair who agreed it.

Did he? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.