Britain without Thatcher

Yeah I couldn't actually believe that when I read the book, particularly as weren't they thinking about selling the Invincible in the run up to the Falklands. Shows an amazing lack of knowledge given the conditions of the Cold War.

Got to say I enjoyed both of his books, they are very well written.

Yep she was to be sold to Australia as replacement for HMAS Melbourne while Illustrious and Ark Royal were to be mothballed. Thatcher was obsessed with confronting the Soviets which meant that she simply didn't pay attention to what was going on elsewhere.
 
Yep she was to be sold to Australia as replacement for HMAS Melbourne while Illustrious and Ark Royal were to be mothballed. Thatcher was obsessed with confronting the Soviets which meant that she simply didn't pay attention to what was going on elsewhere.

Not disagreeing with you but aren't those statements kind of contradictory? Wanting to confront the Soviets yet gutting the RN who would play a role in any war?

Any way I wonder what differences a different leader would have produced in Anglo Irish relations? Would the Hunger Strikes have played out the same way? If not the Ballot side of SF/IRA might not get the upper hand over the bomb faction of the IRA.

Would the Anglo-Irish treaty happen?
 
It was the expeditionary capability that was to be gutted, the LPD's Fearless and Intrepid were also to be disposed of and the Royal Marines would have been used solely to help defend Norway in case of a Soviet invasion. The ASW,
and SSN forces were to be retained and of course money was needed for Trident. This was of course part of the process started under Healey in 1965, it was the prevailing wisdom that the next war would be a nuclear WW3 and that carriers would play a limited role.
 
Not disagreeing with you but aren't those statements kind of contradictory? Wanting to confront the Soviets yet gutting the RN who would play a role in any war?
?
Britain's naval role in a theoretical war against the soviets would have been almost entirely in anti-submarine warfare, blocking the waters between Iceland and Britain (IIRC...maybe Iceland and Greenland too) so Soviet subs couldn't sneak out into the Atlantic to sink the American troop carriers. Our navy was increasingly designed entirely for that - hence the massive success of the Argentine airforce.

I doubt it - more continuing to prop up the loss making inefficient nationalised industries e.g., the Gas & Electricity Boards, Telecommunications arm of the G. P. O., Pickford's Removals, British Airports Authorities, the Steel industry, British Airways, BLMC and others - 'it's not the business of Government to be in Business'

I hate this idea amongst pro-Thatcher people that the only alternative to her would have been everything remaining as it was despite the fact that change was already underway.
When Thatcher came in British industry was in decline. Without Thatcher the evolution would have continued with industry slowly being cut back.
 
I've was looking through The Economist's online archive earlier when I stumbled upon quite an interesting and ironic article shortly before the 1979 election predicting the future of the British politics if Thatcher were elected (April 28th 1979, 'Only one Prime Minister'). Here are some highlights which capture the pessimism of the era:

'Mrs Thatcher seems to have (God help us) little historical vision about the fickleness of British opinion when the going gets rough, only a rudimentary vision of how trade-union power might really be harnessed or curtailed, no vision at all about how to prevent her convictions (and her legislation based on them) being mauled in 1984 or 1989. She is, as we said nearly two years before the prime minister came up with it this week, no Disraeli: to know her even a little is to find it hard to imagine her having the sympathy to write romantic novels about the Chartists.'

'We predict that, if Mrs Thatcher wins office next week, she will live to see most of the things she stands for and achieves assaulted by an alternative government equipped with all the same levers of minority power that she pulled when she had her turn. The cycle of recession and no-growth in which Britain is locked makes the five-year electoral cycle of unpopularity a hard one to escape.'

'Either, about three years into Mrs Thatcher's government, the Liberals will start winning their usual mid-term round of Tory Orpingtons. A frighteningly left-wing-seeming Labour party will at that moment start looking poised again to take power in the next parliament. In which case...Mrs Thatcher may inaugurate a reformed electoral system which reflects the real common sense of the British people. Only that would guarantee her government's work not being overturned at the next general election.'

'The next Labour government...will be a very much worse one than Mr. Callaghan has led...Mr. Denis Healey would be unlikely to be able to hold a Labour party in opposition for long...The party's finances and votes depend directly on the trade unions...The best negative reason for voting against Margaret Thatcher is therefore that Britain's moderates...could find life quite impossible...It has been one of Mr Callaghan's uncelebrated successes to create an apparent firmness from Downing Street that has helped nurture the first stirrings of renascent moderation in Britain's trade unions. If Mrs Thatcher wins, both he and that will be discredited.'
 
God. That's more like a moan from someone you'd get talking to on a bus than paragraphs from an article. Just a complete meandering whinge. Even I'm not that bad.

We're perpetually pessimistic. A good illustration of the fact, right there.
 
So why did a soldier open fire? it's unlikely that they would even be armed for the mission they were on. Violence yes but the public would most likely support the soldiers. It most certainly won't cost the PM his job.

Tony Benn hires Maggie Thatcher's scriptwriter? asb territory here.

So why would the San Carlos landings fail when they done the same as they did in otl? The Falklands failure would either be caving in to diplomacy or letting the Belgrano sink a carrier. Either way, whoever looses the Falklands looses the next election.

The big deal for Labour in the early 80's was the internal struggles with Militant Tendancy and Michael Foot's weak leadership. If either of these things happen then it will cause problems for Britain and cost Labour the next election.

If Maggie looses in 1987 then the Tory grandees won't be able to get rid of her quick enough. Her replacement would probably win the next election (but no landslide) and have to face Scargill and the miners strike.
 
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