The way he said 'complete horse' I thought he might have some hard evidence to back up his wild assertions.



Not a very good opinion is it, as Tony Blair said he would have done the same, but as this is obviously far too difficult for your brain to comprehend maybe we should leave it there.

Yes, after the war went well, it looked retrospectively like a good decision to go in and it portrayed Thatcher as a strong leader. Up till 1982 she didn't really have the "Iron Lady" image. After that she was a lot more confident and decisive and shaped her own Cabinet in her way with her own picks as well, whereas before the 83 election it was still Thatcher a bit isolated amongst Heathites.



Undoubtedly the swift outcome of the conflict helped Thatcher's image, but the key point is that before the conflict took place the advice she got was that it was going to be very difficult and there was a high chance of humiliation and failure to retake the islands. So to say Thatcher calculated on going to war for political reasons to help her win an election just doesn't wash because the chances of success were so ropey - a shrewd political calculator would have avoided the conflict. I am not a Thatcher lover by any means but you have to give her a fair trial and attack her for the right reasons.



Wars are very risky affairs for Prime Ministers. Tony Blair's reputation came out enhanced after Kosovo and Sierra Leone, because they were fairly swift affairs that achieved a desired outcome. But the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were disastrous for Blair politically because they dragged on, no WMDs were found in Iraq and Blair was exposed for not having an exit strategy. Blair should really have romped to another landslide in 2005 but his majority was cut substantially because trust had already been eroded over the Iraq affair.



Another point on wars, in 1991 just after John Major had taken over as PM Britain was at war with Iraq, Major was ahead in the polls just after that but it's difficult to see if it was a 'war bounce' because Major had not long since taken over from Thatcher and the Tories jumped ahead in the polls as soon as she left anyway! Nevertheless by June that year Labour were ten points up. So Major definitely did not benefit from a war effect in the 92 election, he was forced to call it whilst still about five points down, but Kinnock and Labour blew that one big time.

The opinion of one poster here is as valid as Tony Blairs opinion on something that he had no part of, I know that you were probably just very, very small, if born at all in 1982 but 15 seconds on Wiki is all the evidence that you'd need to gather before judging how the facts may dilute your comment somewhat.



If you had mentioned that the then labour leader Michael Foot, a life long pacifist and CND supporter had declared his support for Thatchers call to arms on the Falklands then you would have made a very strong point and valid counter argument, but as I say, you weren't born at that point so your innocence is forgiven.

No because the poster specifically said 'at any other time we would have left a spec.....'



Well no, because Tony Blair has stated he would have done the same as Thatcher if he was in her shoes. So according to him (not me), if the Falklands had been invaded in say 2000, he would have done the same as Thatcher (ie, send a task force).



So it's likely not true to say 'at any other time we would have not fought the war'.

Has a conscripted army ever beat a professional one in modern warfare?

You really can't handle Blair being the son of Thatcher politics wise can you.

Of course he would have done the same thing (and I took that to mean if he were PM at the time), they had the same core ideology.

Don't forget as well that Michael Foot who was leader of the Labour party at the time, and the most left wing Labour leader since the war other than Attlee, supported sending the task force to recapture the islands from Galtieri. So if it was just about winning an election for Thatcher, wtf was Foot in on it, trying to win her an election?



It's ironic that a lot of people that now claim we should have left the islands to Galtieri after he used force to invade, criticise Blair for an 'illegal invasion' of Afghanistan and Iraq. Surely if what Blair did was illegal, then Galtieri was illegal too....? What about when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. Was this ok?

It would have been political suicide not to be seen to "back our boys".

I think it went deeper than that with Foot, he was incredibly well respected within his party for being a man of principle even when those within the party didn't agree with his left wing agenda, they at least respected his obstinate stance on his politics - for such a man who throughout his career had been a CND member and outspoken critic of war in all its forms to meekly kow-tow to the Commons overwhelming support for a Task Force to sail to the Falklands is surprising, possibly he had one eye on the opinion polls and held for several weeks the hope that the Americans would broker a deal, but even so...



...such are politics.

What should be remembered is that Argentina invaded a British territory and occupied it by force against the wishes of the islanders. This makes it quite different to Hong Kong etc



Mrs Thatcher did not send the task force because of a forthcoming election. She took a huge risk on her decision to honour a treaty to protect the islanders who considered themselves British. She faced opposition from the USA because they were relying on Argentina to prevent the spread of communism in South America.



That she acted so decisively is great credit to her and sent an important message that Britain would go to war on a principle to defend British people. It was why other people of principal like Michael Foot supported her.

Conservative party central office couldn't have put it any better...

sounds about right to me