Talking of the 70’s, I just finished Kenneth Morgan’s biography of Michael Foot
The book is full of surprises – even if some of them are ones that you vaguely knew before, but hadn’t really believed. His friendship with, and sponsorship by, Beaverbrook, was just the tip of an iceberg. I didn’t know that Foot became, in later life, a close friend of Ian Gilmour. I did, somehow, know that he was a friend of Enoch Powell’s, but it is surprising nevertheless, and what is particularly surprising is that they seem to have become friends, on Foot’s initiative, shortly after the “rivers of blood” speech (Radio 4 had a very good evaluation of Powell last year, during which the son of some Tory MP told about how his parents, previously good friends of Powell’s, turned Powell away from the door the day after the speech, and never spoke to him again, which indicates just how unacceptable the speech was). They collaborated closely both on defeating House of Lords reform (Foot wanted it abolished, not turned into a House of place-men), and, obviously, opposing entry to, and then staying in, the EEC. Another close friend was Randolph Churchill, who twice challenged him in Devonport; they became friends, apparently, during the first campaign, when Foot and Jill Craigie would frequently give Churchill rides back from events where his Conservative election workers, who disliked him, had abandoned him. The second campaign was, apparently, vicious, and yet the friendship remained solid. A lifelong Republican, who has refused any and all honours, he became friends with the Queen when he was party leader, and also with the Queen Mother, who apparently admired his good sense in wearing his donkey jacket to the Cenotaph for the Remembrance ceremony. There’s better still: some MI5 report is quoted as saying the Foot, Benn, Mikardo, Driberg, Heffer, Hart, Castle and David Owen were “Labour MPs who are believed to be Communists and are in positions of influence”. Brilliant.
There are also other, Foot-unrelated, surprises. For example, I didn’t know that it was the right wingers in the cabinet, rather than the left, who were most intransigent over accepting IMF terms in the 1976 crisis, nor that James Callaghan was the key cabinet member leading the campaign to defeat In Place of Strife. The revelation that Jack Jones “felt that Heath would have made a good Labour Prime Minister in other circumstances, with a stronger grasp of the working class world than Wilson ever had” says a lot about the political environment of the late 60’s and early 70’s.
But why did the book first make me think worse of Foot? There are revelations about his private life that I’d sooner not have known (not that I assumed he was a saint, or anything, its just that being presented with the flaws makes it hard to disregard them). Mainly, though, it is that Foot seems to have been politically irresponsible for most of his political career. He was constantly criticizing the leadership, but seems unconcerned with what the alternative courses of action were for the actors he criticizes. His interventions, frequently through pamphleteering, and often through public speaking, seem to be focused on personalities, and identifying betrayal, of movement, or ideals, or country, rather than on identifying an alternative direction and a course of action. Morgan emphasizes several times Foot’s lack of interest in economics, and of course it is not the case that everyone ought to be interested in economics, but he was a leader of a loose oppositionist movement from the mid-40’s to the mid-60’s that had, as a movement, no-one who was interested in economics, despite that being the key ground on which it was criticizing its leadership. Bevan, his hero, similarly posed no alternative, but he, at least, had the distinction of being the key person who built the one great lasting achievement of the Attlee government.
He was also, and seems to remain, unduly uncritical of his heroes. A series of them; Stafford Cripps, Beaverbrook, Bevan, and Indira Ghandi, he just seems to idolize, in a way that is not just bemusing, but also that distorts his judgment about political matters. I suppose his idolization of the Nehru family is the worst misjudgment, but the most consequential is his idolization of Bevan. Bevan was one of three personalities in the party whose ambition and disinterest in movement building kept the party out of power for 13 years, and kept it from being effective for much longer. Attlee hung onto the leadership as long as he did in order to prevent the poisonous Morrison becoming leader, and in the (vain) hope that Bevan would mature enough to assume the leadership. In the end Gaitskell became leader, but his more or less open war with Bevan which persisted until the late 1950’s made the party look entirely unprepared for power. Morgan conjectures (probably rightly) that had they both lived Bevan would have become a loyal senior cabinet member, but in a way that is irrelevant; the Bevanites could not (and would not have) made their peace with the party, but nor could they pose an alternative. Foot, by Morgan’s account, was the most loyal and troublesome Bevanite. From my perspective it looks as if the fight between the Bevanites and the Gaitskellites really was much more about personality than politics or policy (the pleasure that many of the Bevanites took in Wilson’s ascendancy to the leadership of the Party confirms this; his only merit for the Bevanites seems to have been that he was once one of them, and that seems to have been enough).
So why did I warm to him after all in the second half of the book? In a way this surprised me. I was first aware of politics in the very early seventies, when Foot was regarded as a villain in parts of the press, but was well-regarded in my home environment (not my parents so much, but my maternal grandmother, who was a child of the valleys and the General Strike). It was his oppostionism that earned him this status. But as a Minister he seems to have accepted the reality that he had no feasible alternative, and to have been loyal but critical. On top of that, he was, by Morgan’s account, a generous and hard working boss when a minister, who worked well with his civil servants and saw his job as representing the Unions in government. His leadership of the Labour Party was disastrous, and I am sure that if he could do it all again he would not have stood for the leadership when Callaghan vacated it. But the disaster was not of his making. Morgan conjectures that no-one else would have led the party better at that time, and there is no reason to disagree. Foot’s supporters in the election were not all from the left of the party; a few supporters were right wingers and centrists who thought that Healey was incapable of performing a leadership role and that Foot was a better bet (Philip Whitehead, and, apparently, Harold Wilson). Healey managed to fall out with a good number of right wingers, and treated the leadership election with a level of disinterest that alarmed some of his supporters; indication perhaps that he did not really want it, but regardless of that a bad sign in a future leader. Had Healey become leader (and Healey was the only real alternative), the civil war might have been much worse than it, in fact, was.
Another thing that made me think better of him was the discovery that his support for military action against Argentina was sincere. Now, I was an opponent of the Falklands War at the time (what a surprise), but I was not disgusted by Foot’s support of the war because I thought it was wrong, but because I thought it was mere opportunism (as, I still suspect, it was in many other Labour supporters). But Morgan points out that Foot’s strong reaction against the invasion of the Falklands pushed Thatcher to be more aggressive than she had been in public, and is convincing that it was a sincere reaction based on Foot’s own judgment. Even if I still thought the war was wrong (and I am not going to go into why I have changed my mind about this, so don’t ask – another post sometime down the line), knowing that he was not being opportunistic would make me think better of him. He made some terrible judgments (including his attack on Peter Tatchell, which Morgan deals with excellently) as leader, but for the most part it seems to me he was, like John Major after him, holding a poisoned chalice, and made a reasonable showing in a lousy situation.
All this makes it sound as if I am a moderate old Labour loyalist. But no; I’ve never actually been a member of the Labour Party, and my sympathies still lie with the left, rather than the centre and right of the party (though there are some people on the centre and right of the Party who I admire a great deal). I found that my reaction to Foot is not influenced by my political positions, but rather by an evaluation of the internal coherence of his positions.
One final, and for me rather alarming, revelation. I have long assumed that the person whose sartorial state my own is unconsciously modeled on is my dad. Not so. The pictures of Foot in the book show him dressed pretty much as I dress. Sensible shoes, white shirt, V-neck jumper or cardigan, tie on any but informal occasions, dark trousers usually stained (in my case by toothpaste rather than wine and food), tweed or other kind of sports jacket, generally a bit of a mess. Thank goodness for my wife that, unlike Foot’s (as Morgan reminds us several times), no-one is stupid or sexist enough to blame her for my sartorial condition.
{ 43 comments }
Tom Hurka 12.02.08 at 12:25 am
Harry: That’s actually pretty high-class dressing. It’s the layering (jacket over sweater over shirt) that sets it apart from a working man’s simple t-shirt. And no number of stains can change that.
Kieran Healy 12.02.08 at 1:44 am
, but the most consequential is his idolization of Bevan. Bevan was one of three personalities in the party whose ambition and disinterest in movement building kept the party out of power for 13 years, and kept it from being effective for much longer.
I’m ashamed to say that whenever I hear Bevan mentioned I think of the end of this Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch where the Question Time panel discuss imminent nuclear annihilation.
harry b 12.02.08 at 2:01 am
Well, count yourself lucky; you probably don’t hear Bevan mentioned very often. Whenever I hear Ronald Reagan mentioned, I hear them singing “I believe JR really loves Sue Ellen, I believe that things sound better when you’re YELLIN, I believe that the Devil is ready to repent, but I can’t believe…”, only I start right at the beginning of the bloody song.
Kieran Healy 12.02.08 at 2:04 am
only I start right at the beginning of the bloody song.
I believe Gerald Ford is clever, that Bob Hope will live forever, and that leever is pronounced levver …
P O'Neill 12.02.08 at 2:26 am
Despite the BBC’s attempts to hide the BBC R4 Powell documentary, The Google finds it —
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/1968/riversofblood.shtml
Note that the story about Powell being shunned the day after the speech appears to refer not to a Tory MP, but a Wolverhampton newspaper editor.
Dave Weeden 12.02.08 at 6:36 am
IIRC, the Foot-Powell axis had something to do with both being anti-Europe which became more of an issue in the late 60s and early 70s. Their reasons for being so were quite different of course so the alliance was about as cynical as Parliamentary horse-trading gets. And it didn’t work.
dsquared 12.02.08 at 7:30 am
I think that Bevan’s “disinterest in movement building” has to be seen in the context of the same kind of postwar politics which had CIA files on how David Owen was a Commie. It’s hard to sustain an interest in movement-building when anyone who glances in your direction starts finding themselves on the wrong end of a dirty tricks campaign (Jack Jones’ views also need to be seen in the context of his closeness to Joseph Godson, the CIA’s liaison with the European trade union movement). A lot of things about 60s and 70s Labour politics which otherwise make no sense at all make a lot more sense when you remember that it’s unlikely that the US intelligence community regarded the UK as a lower priority than Italy.
fjm 12.02.08 at 7:51 am
The pattern of admiring individuals absolutely, and seeing “friending the friendless” among the political elite, makes sense if you place Foot among the Quaker Pacifists of his youth (he wasn’t one, but was friends with many). This was very much their pattern. The Quakers and many other pacifist groups of the 1890s-1920s saw working with the individual power holder as their main mode of operation. Only in the 1930s did they move towards a much more communitarian political approach.
bert 12.02.08 at 8:22 am
Is “opportunistic/not opportunistic” the only grounds for judgement?
My impression is that Foot responded to the Argentine invasion by consciously reaching back to his own glory days forty years before, when he took on the Guilty Men of appeasement. His was a standard Galtieri-is-the-new-Mussolini argument. He’s open to the same kind of criticism that’s been applied to more recent liberal hawks.
The 1983 election might have been fought on the early-80s recession and the previous four years of economic management. Because of the Falklands, it wasn’t. Michael Foot played his part. Just as – to pick a name at random – Michael Ignatieff played his in 2003. Of course, the foreign policy consequences of the Falklands bear no comparison. But the consequences for Foot’s causes closer to home do.
ejh 12.02.08 at 9:03 am
What movement was Bevan disinterested in building?
ejh 12.02.08 at 9:11 am
I read RW Johnson’s review of the book in the LRB not long ago and I remember being annoyed b yJohnson’s praise of one of Foot’s characteristics, which was to be openly critical of the leadership over some important issue and then stage a climbdown in the service of party unity. All very well, but not only was it more than a little drama-queeny, but it was also a right Foot generally reserved to himself – as if he were the Official Party Drama Queen – being unprepared to accept similar open criticism of the leadership from others. (More recently Clare Short has of course taken on a similar role.)
I liked him though.
dave heasman 12.02.08 at 9:28 am
“Foot’s supporters in the election were not all from the left of the party; a few supporters were right wingers and centrists ”
Who subsequently formed/joined the SDP. They thought they’d performed an act of sabotage on the Labour Party and maybe they had; but, as yer man says, Healey was hardly an emollient politician and might have been just as ineffective against Thatcher.
Dave 12.02.08 at 12:26 pm
“His was a standard Galtieri-is-the-new-Mussolini argument. ”
As opposed to what? “Galtieri is a murdering torturing fascist SOB who’s just taken nearly 2000 British citizens hostage, but we don’t like Thatch so f*ck ’em?” Or is there a logically and morally consistent argument for allowing right-wing dictators to do stuff in violation of international law that I’m not aware of?
The only problem with the Falklands War was that it did allow MT to win the ’83 election, which with hindsight means maybe we would have been better off leaving the Falklanders to the nasty f*cker in Buenos Aires, but hindsight is a wonderful thing… And I’m not sure the Labour Party c.1983 would actually have made a functioning government. At least, not for long before the CIA came knocking. Very British Coup, anyone…?
harry b 12.02.08 at 2:35 pm
Dave — yes, some of them were that, but not all (including Whitehead and, obviously, Wilson, who apparently voted for Healey in the first ballot and Foot in the second.
Thanks dsquared, that’s fair enough, and I’ll bear it in mind as I continue to plough through all these histories of the period that I seem unable to refrain from reading.
bert 12.02.08 at 3:34 pm
Other Dave,
Let’s not waste any time on the obviously foolish notion that opposition to the Falklands War was the untaken road to Labour victory in the 1983 election.
The current rightthinking consensus (to which I guess Harry may have moved) seems about right to me: the war was (a) ridiculous and (b) unavoidable.
Avoiding it would have involved deterring the invasion, by exempting the South Atlantic from the defence cuts of the period, perhaps … the sort of thing that is clear only in hindsight. Once you had Argentine troops on the island, and crowds at the Casa Rosada cheering balconies full of junta, a response was required.
My point above was that sincere/not sincere isn’t perhaps the best grounds to distinguish good from bad liberal hawk arguments.
Since we’re digging out BBC radio documentaries, this one’s interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/6591267.stm. It’s about how the Reagan White House debated their response: do we back our NATO client, or our School-of-the-Americas client. I don’t think you need to be British to believe the right side won in the end.
richard schrader 12.02.08 at 5:49 pm
Of course the right side won in the end — no one has ever accused the Foreign Ministry of attempting to obliterate an entire culture in the Falklands war for ideological triumphalism or to corner the market on a key global resource.
Still, the ’80’s Labor leadership couldn’t muster a competitive team to contest Thatcherism at the start of the long, reactionary arc that has largely dominated Anglo politics these past decades. Maybe had Crossman survived his balky heart, he could have put his cranky, narcissistic realism against the mean-spirited tide to succeed the much underappreciated Wilson.
ejh 12.02.08 at 6:01 pm
a response was required.
Why? To show how hard we were?
How did it feel to be the mother of a thousand dead?
Dave 12.02.08 at 6:42 pm
@17: basically, yes. Countries that let their territory be invaded without making some kind of forcible response are essentially f*cked. Post-Westphalian definitions of sovereignty and all that. If GB ever wanted to be anything on the world stage except the punchline to a joke, there really was very little choice. If you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t mind that latter outcome, fair enough, but you have to acknowledge the geopolitical realities as they stood, and stand.
bert 12.02.08 at 7:03 pm
ejh, you are crass.
ejh 12.03.08 at 9:28 am
If you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t mind that latter outcome, fair enough
Well, I have to say that I rather prefer it to killing a couple of thousand people in the service of making us feel big, but it’s worth a few seconds of my time to observe that this:
Countries that let their territory be invaded without making some kind of forcible response are essentially f*cked.
doesn’t mean anything. The Falklands were and are eight thousand miles away and choosing to fight a war to recover them really would not, I think, have persuaded anybody else that we wouldn’t have fought if Sussex were invaded.
Still, at least we saved democracy. Or something.
Dave 12.03.08 at 10:24 am
I didn’t say it was nice, I said you have to recognise the realities of the situation. The reason GB HAD to respond was to defend its sovereignty, or be a laughing-stock. The reason that I, personally, think it was better to do that than not to do that is that the Argentinian junta were fascists, and I really, really don’t think fascists should be appeased, especially not at the cost of giving up to them people who were under the impression that it was the job of HM Govt to protect them from, among other things, invasion by foreign troops. Regardless of exactly how many miles they might be from Charing Cross.
It is one thing not to like the British government, or the army, or any other aspect of the UK state. It is quite another to think that things would automatically be better without them. Things might easily be worse – just as, to take another classic 80s example, ‘troops out of Ulster’ might have brought, not peace and understanding, but real civil war. In the shadow of Iraq, it is an awkward truth to acknowledge, but one that bears repeating nonetheless:the British government and its forces are not the most unpleasant entities in the world, and might actually be better than any practically-achievable [though doubtless not any imaginable] alternative. You don’t have to like that – I’m not saying that I like it – but if you have a reasoned argument as to why it’s not true, I’d be happy to consider it.
ejh 12.03.08 at 11:58 am
The reason GB HAD to respond was to defend its sovereignty, or be a laughing-stock.
A laughing-stock with whom? Who precisely would be laughing at the British government because they accepted that they didn’t want to fight a war to defend a tiny set of islands half a world away that nobody else thought should be British anyway and which conflict would (and did) cost more lives than the number of inhabitants?
I do remember some laughing, actually – but it was at HMG for thinking the islands were worth a war. Bald men, comb.
Your second paragraph contains the following argument:
“here are some beliefs which have been expressed by nobody but which I will attach to you – would you care to defend them?”
bert 12.03.08 at 12:12 pm
ejh – you capture the ridiculousness of the Falklands.
But I think Dave has the better of it here. Pick your analogy from the playground or the prison yard. It’ll capture what happened, in the world of nation states rather than the song lyric world of anarchy and peace.
And I think we can broaden things to include more than just the sort of people who defend an assertive foreign policy by citing Hobbes. Dave@13 included a passing nod to international law. Set aside if you can the Sun headlines of the period – the Victorian jingoism in which Thatcher liked to indulge – and think about the post-1945 project of establishing a set of norms of international conduct that can serve as a common good.
The junta broke those norms and got biffed. Good show.
engels 12.03.08 at 1:57 pm
We biffed Galtieri! Jolly good show, what?
Yep, no danger of this country being a laughing stock.
Dave 12.03.08 at 2:08 pm
@22: no, my second paragraph contains some statements of how I construe the situation that results from considering, as you appear to do, that British actions over the Falklands were by definition wrong. Since all you’ve said is that they were wrong, but declined to explain why in any cogent way, I thought I might run that argument by you and see if I could get a rational response. Clearly, I can’t. Fair enough, you can continue to posture as if you inhabit a globe on which matters of international politics are settled by agreement over tea and cucumber sandwiches. I will contine to think that you’re just being silly.
Pete 12.03.08 at 4:28 pm
Still no CT post on the arrest of a UK MP?
bert 12.03.08 at 6:09 pm
I wrote “good show” because in these cases appeals to international law are often a useful kind of cover. Agreed norms are all about shared perception.
But also, you’re right, it’s to wind up the sort who’ll quote Crass lyrics at you.
Guano 12.03.08 at 6:59 pm
Was there anything n the book about Foot and Croatia?
engels 12.04.08 at 12:42 am
Fun fact: for the £1.6 billion cost of the Falklands war, each of those 2 000 British citizens could have been offered a relocation grant of £800 000 to move to the rainswept shithole of their choosing.
But of course this ignores the devastating argument, obvious to all attentive readers of Hobbes, Schelling or Sun Tzu, that had we not fought them on the beaches of Port Stanley it would only be a matter of months before French boots were marching up the M20. Or something.
Walt 12.04.08 at 2:14 am
ejh, Argentina was completely free to not invade the Falklands. Or do only Britons have moral agency?
bert 12.04.08 at 8:47 am
We should have spent the money on ducking the fight. Really?
Like I say, it’s a liberal hawk argument. As with more recent cases it’s not clear cut, to say the least. Quite apart from the domestic consequences of an electorate thrilled by biffing, the Thatcher government was a Pinochet sponsor.
In the end you pick a side. Just like Foot.
ajay 12.04.08 at 12:44 pm
Fun fact: for the £1.6 billion cost of the Falklands war, each of those 2 000 British citizens could have been offered a relocation grant of £800 000 to move to the rainswept shithole of their choosing.
So your argument is… what? What do you think the correct response would have been to either an Argentinian demand for the islands, or an actual invasion? Because it sounds like you think this should have happened:
GALTIERI: I want the Falkland Islands.
BRITAIN: You can have them, and we’ll pay to have all the original inhabitants deported and resettled.
Incidentally, would the arrests and forcible deportations have been carried out by British police, or would you have been happy to leave that to the more experienced Argentinians?
Incidentally, you lose points by quoting the “bald men fighting over a comb” line, which was of course said by an Argentinian and has always struck me as a great example of sour grapes. “Oh, well, we didn’t want those useless islands anyway.”
ejh 12.04.08 at 1:10 pm
which was of course said by an Argentinian
It’s not obvious to me that an opinion on the conflict is of less value because it is expressed by an Argentinian.
What should have been done? A protest at the United Nations. Would this have got the islands back? No. Do I care? Not as much as I care about the lives lost regaining them. What would have happened when democracy was restored to Argentina, as it was a few years later? The inhabitants of the Malvinas would have enjoyed much the same rights as they do now. Would that have been a more satisfactory result than what occurred? Yes, I think so. By a long way.
Bert at #23: Set aside if you can the Sun headlines of the period
I could, but my memory won’t. One of my clearest recollections of the time was a Sun headline DARE CALL IT TREASON calling for opponents of the war to be tried. Wars tend to let loose that kind of sentiment, and it’s another reason among many for opposing them.
magistra 12.04.08 at 1:33 pm
What would have happened when democracy was restored to Argentina, as it was a few years later?
Would Argentina have been restored to democracy a few years later if they hadn’t been defeated in the Falklands? How much was Galtieri’s regime undermined by the military’s failure there? That’s the key question for me. And if you allow that the war may have ended the regime earlier (and thus the sufferings of the Argentine people), that makes for an entirely difficult calculation than if you just reckon 1000 dead versus 400 inhabitants protected.
ejh 12.04.08 at 1:36 pm
Would Argentina have been restored to democracy a few years later if they hadn’t been defeated in the Falklands?
Yes, I think so. It happened across the continent.
And if you allow that the war may have ended the regime earlier (and thus the sufferings of the Argentine people), that makes for an entirely difficult calculation than if you just reckon 1000 dead versus 400 inhabitants protected.
Perhaps, but it was also possible that Britain might have fought and lost – which was entirely possible and maybe even a likelier outcome than what actually happened – which complicates the counterfactual a little. (Might have shortened some suffering in the UK if Thatcher had fallen, too. If you want to add it to the mix.)
engels 12.04.08 at 5:10 pm
it sounds like you think this should have happened:
GALTIERI: I want the Falkland Islands.
BRITAIN: You can have them, and we’ll pay to have all the original inhabitants deported and resettled.
In a nutshell: yeah. Except I’m rather doubtful that many people would have to be forced to accept the offer of up to million pounds (in 1982 money) to give up sheep farming and retire to Bermuda.
As so many people are determined to resolve this issue through analogies with the playground, let me offer this one:
A man visits his son’s primary school for a meeting with the headmaster. While his back is turned a 7-year-old kid runs off with his biro. Does he:
a) take the rest of the afternoon off work and spend it tracking down the kid, teaching him a lesson and retrieving the lost pen, finally, rejoicing that justice has been done
b) briefly mention it at the end of his meeting before returning to work as planned
c) say ‘fuck it, it’s a just pen’ and never think about it again
If he does (b) or (c) does he become a coward and a wimp who is doomed to suffer from ever more serious attacks on his person and property or just a sensible guy who has more important things to do then settle scores with little kids, whom he will never see again, and who, it turns out, are going to be expelled from school in two weeks time anyway?
PS. They are not the “original inhabitants”. The original inhabitants of the Falklands Islands were penguins.
ajay 12.04.08 at 6:13 pm
They are not the “original inhabitantsâ€. The original inhabitants of the Falklands Islands were penguins.
That’s very witty. Almost good enough for “Punch”. You could have said “grass”, which was probably there earlier even than the penguins, but then penguins are funny.
So your thesis is: it is not worth going to war to prevent 2 000 Brits from falling under the rule of a military dictatorship for a period of, probably, about five years.
Just out of interest, what is your minimum level? I mean, would we be OK going to war to protect the entire population of Britain from that?
engels 12.04.08 at 6:30 pm
That’s very witty. Almost good enough for “Punchâ€.
Thanks!
So your thesis is: it is not worth going to war to prevent 2 000 Brits from falling under the rule of a military dictatorship for a period of, probably, about five years.
I don’t mind admitting that I don’t know a hell of a lot about this. But I think the alternatives to going to war would have included: (1) a show of force followed by a negotiated Argentine withdrawal (2) re-settling the Falklanders (possibly with large financial sweeteners). So I don’t see why anyone had to fall under a military dictatorship, apart from the penguins.
would we be OK going to war to protect the entire population of Britain from that?
Yes.
ejh 12.04.08 at 6:32 pm
So your thesis is: it is not worth going to war to prevent 2 000 Brits from falling under the rule of a military dictatorship for a period of, probably, about five years.
This would definitely be my thesis, yes. I would certainly sign a document to this effect.
iolanthe 12.05.08 at 12:00 am
“(1) a show of force followed by a negotiated Argentine withdrawal”
Once the Argentines were on what they firmly believed to be their sovereign territory why on earth would you think they would ever withdraw unless made to by force? I can see an argument as to why the response to a fascist invasion is to pay to remove the cause of the dispute (although it’s not one I agree with) but the idea that the Argentines would voluntarily leave under any circumstances seems is unlikely as to be impossible.
Incidentally, why do you attach so little importance to self detemination? My general view on these matters is that you should ask the inhabitants and respect their decision.
jay bee 12.05.08 at 4:38 pm
It says everything about Labour in the 1980s that Harry’s post about the pros and contras of its leader at the start of the decade turned into a riff on the Falklands/Malvinas (with Mr Foot an irrelevant bystander)
Harry: I’d read Foot’s book Debts of Honour which was a collection of essays honourng his heroes/friends and while I liked the picture of Foot that appeared it was clear that he was totally unsuited for leadership as you say with a history of political irresponsibility. The civil war within the labour party would probably have been worse had Denis Healy been elected leader in 1979 but in the long run would it have made any difference?
On the Falklands/Malvinas I pretty certain Debts of Honour came out before the war sorry “conflict” so his attitude was not a surprise – he was a strong anti-Munichite so it was 1938 all over again. I think that more than the Suez experience underpinned his reaction.
Martin Wisse 12.06.08 at 2:40 pm
Can the staunch defenders of the justness of the Falklands war at least acknowledge that at the time the UK and Argentine had already been negotiating about returning the islands to Argentine? There was no inherent UK national interest that needed to be defended in the Falklands until the Thatcher government decided there was.
You also cannot retrospectively make this war into a defeat of the junta: that was never the goal of the war. It may have shortened the live of the regime, but that was incidental. British victory was a close run thing: if the Argentines had had better luck attacking the invasion fleet it may have ended in disaster. Had that happened would you say the Falklands War lenghtened the live of the regime?
ejh 12.06.08 at 4:37 pm
at the time the UK and Argentine had already been negotiating about returning the islands
Quite.
it was 1938 all over again
Isn’t everything? I’m surprised Preston North End don’t win the FA Cup.
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