The UK maintains bases and stations personnel all over the world as do many other countries. The true cost of being in the Falklands is relatively low and the benefits of maintaining a base there are not insignificant.
Falklands
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
The UK maintains bases and stations personnel all over the world as do many other countries. The true cost of being in the Falklands is relatively low and the benefits of maintaining a base there are not insignificant.
Well if Cuba suddenly pitched up on a uninhabited island off Massachusetts and put a load of commies on it I bet Uncle Sam wouldn't be too happy.
You do realise that the wars of Europe since time immemorial were fought on that pretext? Belgium is an artificial construct, the French/Italian border has fluctuated significantly for centuries before Italy was even unified, the same can be said on the French/German border.
It gets much worse in Eastern Europe were entire countries were often under contention - Germany claiming half of Poland and Russia claiming the other half, then of course we have the mess that is the Former Yugoslavia, how would we deal with such issues there? What about Greece, Macedonia, Turkey and Cyprus? Greece claims Macedonia cannot even be called Macedonia due to its own region with the same name, Greece claiming that western Anatolia belongs to them as does Cyprus who says it is their own, and Turkey who wants it.
And this is in a prosperous, stable and benign part of the world, let alone what happens when you introduce such ideas into the Middle East or South East Asia - lets see what happens if you try and enforce that in Tibet or Taiwan, or in Kashmir.
They've already done that in Florida. It's called Miami.
It was a different scenario but the same point applies, you cannot maintain your foreign policy aims and your sovereignty in a dangerous world or in a dispute and not spend appropriately on defence.
Peterstorey I am sure in the past has argued that we messed up by needing to send a task force in 1982 in the first place, and many other like minded individuals would be advocating the same.
We should have given them the islands back years ago. It's not my fault it's that slag Thatcher's.
People will argue all day about who something belongs to (israel/pallestine?) and we won't see any answers. However Argentina are geographically closer and the falklands are a useless batch of grey islands.. Just hand them over.
My dad holds the view that we where in negotiations to hand them over, and Argentina jumped the gun as a publicity stunt. Whether that is true, or whether we where in negotiations but where never going to hand them over, the fact is since Argentina invaded the Falklands they have made it so that we will never "hand it over". At least not for another 50 years
Just forget it.
I doubt will will even consider handing them back until the close relatives on the people that died in the conflict have passed away. Some of the siblings are probably only in their early 40s so 50 years from now sounds about right.
Whilst some may say this is wildly off-topic, all aspects of policy are intricately connected.
Actions such as those this week is the way pressure on the Falklands will go in the future, Argentina will act with economic moves through South America as a whole and as our trade relations, at least regulation, come through Brussels so that will bring the European Union into play.
One of the unintended consequences of the European Union is that no country within it can have trade sanctions or tariffs placed upon them whatsoever, without placing them on the European Union as a whole, and nobody is ever going to do that to the world's largest single market. With Argentina being as petty as they are, the natural progression of what they are trying to do will be to harm our trade relations with South America if we don't yield though being an EU member that makes it so much more difficult to accomplish.
And issues related to our own economy are in play as well, firstly financial services. I am in such support of the industry as I am a pragmatist, it generates incredible wealth for the economy and in a globalising world there are much worse things to be than the world financial capital. Any moves to bring retribution to the sector for the last few years will sensationally decrease our soft and hard power capabilities into the future, being the crossroads of worldwide movement of capital is just about as big a stick as it gets in international relations.
If we maintain into the long term our position in such affairs then South America will have big problems if they want to go down this path, Brazil wants to be a first-rate economic power and is well on its way to being so - being closer to developed than either China or India. However if it wants closer ties to the world economy and global markets then it will have to resist Argentina beating the drum which is of no tangible benefit for anybody but Argentina.
Actions such as those this week is the way pressure on the Falklands will go in the future, Argentina will act with economic moves through South America as a whole and as our trade relations, at least regulation, come through Brussels so that will bring the European Union into play.
One of the unintended consequences of the European Union is that no country within it can have trade sanctions or tariffs placed upon them whatsoever, without placing them on the European Union as a whole, and nobody is ever going to do that to the world's largest single market. With Argentina being as petty as they are, the natural progression of what they are trying to do will be to harm our trade relations with South America if we don't yield though being an EU member that makes it so much more difficult to accomplish.
And issues related to our own economy are in play as well, firstly financial services. I am in such support of the industry as I am a pragmatist, it generates incredible wealth for the economy and in a globalising world there are much worse things to be than the world financial capital. Any moves to bring retribution to the sector for the last few years will sensationally decrease our soft and hard power capabilities into the future, being the crossroads of worldwide movement of capital is just about as big a stick as it gets in international relations.
If we maintain into the long term our position in such affairs then South America will have big problems if they want to go down this path, Brazil wants to be a first-rate economic power and is well on its way to being so - being closer to developed than either China or India. However if it wants closer ties to the world economy and global markets then it will have to resist Argentina beating the drum which is of no tangible benefit for anybody but Argentina.
Believe you me, if it wasn't for the 2008 bailout we'd have had a lot more. All this stuff were getting now was ordered about 15 years ago. Then after the bailout and Cameron coming in we started scrapping unfinished projects. We kept the new carrier projects because it was in such a far advanced stage that it would have cost more to scrap them and we're going to be selling one to Australia. The ony way we could afford the carriers and joint strikeforce planes we already ordered was by shelving our current carriers, retiring the harriers and countless other defence cuts. We were looking to team up with the french and have a joint euro uber military (as seen in Libya) but now that they and the rest of the world hates us again, I can see a few lean years ahead until we start buildng our own stuff again.
What is all this give them the islands back malarkey, they've never had them.
It is true, we had agreed in the early 70's to hand them back, only as long as the population agreed, with which we were going to persuade them and do a hong kong style return. We allowed the Argentineans to build an airstrip and started to open up the trade between the 2 with the idea that Argentineans would start to populate the island and slowly replace the current inhabitants.
The military Junta in 81 decided the time was right to take the islands by force, we wanted to give them back as we could stop spending money on it, we were on the end of an economic downturn and were like now scrapping large chunks of our navy and expected us to have no support from the USA. So they thought the taking of the islands would be easy and bloodless which in whole they were and no one would care except, the Argentinean people who would celebrate, and give a big shot in the arm to ruling junta. So they invaded and did so with the loss of one soldier and under orders to keep it as peaceful as possible to prevent any needless headlines. They thought it was over and the next step would be negotiations. Thatcher and the gang were ready to hand it over and call it a day. Enter Admiral Sir Henry Leach, who reminded them all that whilst Argentina did have a disputable claim that as of that moment the Falkland Island and it's inhabitants were under the protection of the the crown and that if subjects of the Crown ever found themselves in peril, it was both the duty and the privilege of Britain to come to their aid. The rest is as they say history.
So if the Argentineans hadn't invaded they would be looking to getting the islands back or would already have them. Now no matter what we do we won't be able to convince the current population to hand over the islands, so once again we're stuck in a stupid position. All the current sabre rattling though isn't over anything to do with the islands but the fishing rights and more importantly the oil. There is a belief that their is over 60 billion barrels worth of oil under the island territories as well as gas reserves. (Argentinea has 2.2 billion barrels in reserve, the UK 3.4 billion). Unfortuanetly all this combined rattling won't lead to negotiation but rather to war and it's all coming from Argentinea.
Again stupidally there is an agreement that can be made. All it takes is for Argentinea to drop it's caims and use trade to influence itself over the area. Then once it has infected every aspect of the falklands, handing over the islands back to their sovereignty would be easy. All it would take is a oil and trading agreement. Stop mentioning ownership of the islands and do it in a underhanded USA style. Argentinea would get it's hands on the majority of the oil, it would then get military aid and trading support from the UK and develop tourism between the 2 countries, eventualy the islands would just fall back into their hands naturally. The other option is we go to war. The feck up that was the early 80's has ruined everything
Eventually the Falklands will go to Argentinea, it's how we get there thats important.
I was just about to say "who said that?" but then saw that i did.
I know they never had the islands it was late last night and i had a brain fart and wrote that. Still my opinion has always been the same about those islands: They aren't or never have been worth the trouble.
I was just about to say "who said that?" but then saw that i did.
I know they never had the islands it was late last night and i had a brain fart and wrote that. Still my opinion has always been the same about those islands: They aren't or never have been worth the trouble.
60 billion barrels of oil, now they are.
I was just about to say "who said that?" but then saw that i did.
I know they never had the islands it was late last night and i had a brain fart and wrote that. Still my opinion has always been the same about those islands: They aren't or never have been worth the trouble.
I think the finding of Oil changes that
Well in all fairness before Argentina invaded the Islands they weren't really much trouble. It was/is an important port in the South Atlantic for all sorts of things. We only used to have a tiny contingent of marines their, 6-12 usually.
The invasion changed everything, and there was no way the UK government could stand back and do nothing. In fact the public support for the task force was unprecedented.
Technically they probably aren't worth the trouble unless you take the long term on oil. However the recent history and will of the Islanders make it highly unlikely we will be negotiating with Argentina anytime soon.
Indeed, the impact on the foreign policy perception of the United Kingdom had we done nothing would have been gigantic, it would have been worse than Suez and would have lost our credibility as a great power and the diplomatic strength that comes with that.
Though any arguments you can come up with regard to a strategic port or fossil fuels etc, it was the right thing to do purely by way of the people - they and those in the other overseas territories. No doubt there would have been knock on effects in Gibraltar had we been seen to abandon the Falklands and no doubt Bermuda and the Cayman Islands would not have been impressed.
Though any arguments you can come up with regard to a strategic port or fossil fuels etc, it was the right thing to do purely by way of the people - they and those in the other overseas territories. No doubt there would have been knock on effects in Gibraltar had we been seen to abandon the Falklands and no doubt Bermuda and the Cayman Islands would not have been impressed.
Can't upset the Caymans.....they have all the rich peoples money.
the real solution is to give these people self determination and realistically agree with Argentina that both Britain and Argentina will jointly agree to 'protect' the Falklands.
put your money where your mouth is.
Bermuda and the Caymans are pretty much states of the USA now.
They have been given self determination and they want to remain a British Overseas Territory. Successive British governments have stressed the importance of their right to choose. What you are suggesting goes counter to the principle of self-determination because it would require forcing upon them a political and sovereign status that they do not want.
From the Daily Mail... "The day the Argies retook the Falklands"
The date is July 27, 2012, and in London the Olympic Games are about to begin. For months, the British people have been looking forward to the jamboree of patriotic enthusiasm.
But now that the day is here, the mood feels heavy with gloom. The crowds are thin, the drizzle pours down. The Union Flags hang forlornly in the dull breeze.
Even the nation's new Prime Minister, the blinking, stammering Ed Miliband, cuts a remarkably limp figure, a melancholy leader for a nation sunk in misery.
Several thousand miles away, across the cold seas of the South Atlantic, the atmosphere could hardly be more different. For in the capital of the Islas Malvinas, the archipelago formerly known as the Falkland Islands, an Argentine victory parade is underway.
Though victory in the Second Falklands War was secured only a few weeks ago, the islands' conquerors have already been busy.
At the tiny airport that serves Puerto Argentino — formerly Port Stanley — a gigantic mural commemorates the soldiers from the mainland who lost their lives.
Beside the old Anglican cathedral, draped with a massive blue-and-white flag, the statue of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner gazes impassively out to sea.
For the Iron Lady, as her adoring country-men call her, the war was a turning point, securing her place in South American history for all time.
But for Britain, battered by months of economic austerity, it was a tempest that swept away the Coalition government and destroyed any lingering illusions that the United Kingdom was still a serious power.
As the Argentine troops parade triumphantly down Avenida Leopoldo Galtieri, a few miserable islanders stand and watch. Many have already booked their flights back to Britain, sick of the Spanish road signs and posters of Diego Maradona.
The tragic irony, of course, is that we should have seen it coming.
When in December 2011, the South American trading bloc Mercosur (comprising Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) voted to ban boats flying the Falklands flag from docking in their ports, many people shrugged their shoulders.
But a few brave souls warned that this was merely the latest shot in a diplomatic campaign that, if left unchecked, could turn into outright war.
As far back as February 2010, Mrs Kirchner had begun sabre-rattling over Britain's supposedly 'illegal' oil drilling off the Falklands. With her own economy sunk in crisis and oil experts predicting a windfall beneath the Atlantic, the Argentine president was playing a long game.
Meanwhile, military experts warned the Coalition that its projected cuts would make defending the islands simply impossible.
Under the terms of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the government had committed itself to scrapping the Harrier Jump Jets and decommissioning the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, effectively hobbling its capacity to strike back against an Argentine invasion.
In October 2010, Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward, the architect of victory in the South Atlantic in 1982, warned that a surprise attack would be 'highly likely to succeed'.
Thanks to the swingeing cuts, he insisted, the Argentines could take the islands 'with barely a shot being fired'.
But to their eternal shame, the Coalition ignored his warnings. And they even ignored an even more aggressive bout of sabre-rattling from Mrs Kirchner, who declared the following summer that Britain was merely a 'crude colonial power in decline'.
All this, however, was merely a taste of what was to come.
For as 2011 neared its end, the Argentine president was keeping a close eye on events in Europe.
Heartened by the freezing of relations between Britain and its Continental partners, Mrs Kirchner calculated that the rest of the European Union would never back Britain's claims to the disputed islands.
Indeed, discreet signals from Paris indicated that President Nicolas Sarkozy would look kindly on an Argentine invasion, since it would bring David Cameron to heel. Over Christmas and New Year, Argentina's military chiefs drew up their plans.
The islands, they told their president, were protected only by 1,000 British soldiers, four Typhoon fighter jets, a warship, and, from time to time, a nuclear submarine.
'Thanks to the cuts, there is little chance that the British would muster an adequate response to the liberation of the Malvinas,' wrote her principal military adviser. 'What is more, the international position has never been more favourable. If we strike now, we will enjoy the support of our neighbours as well as the muted encouragement of Great Britain's European rivals.'
What appealed to Mrs Kirchner was the fact that the spring of 2012 would mark the 30th anniversary of the first Falklands War, in which Margaret Thatcher's intrepid British task force had retaken the islands.
Indeed, some reports suggest that it was her outrage at Meryl Streep's triumph at the Oscars for the Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady that made up the Argentine president's mind.
As the weeks progressed, Argentine intelligence kept a close eye on events in Britain. Behind the scenes, they reported, the Coalition was increasingly divided.
And with Britain's economy plunging back into recession, Vince Cable quitting the Cabinet and the anti-capitalist Occupy movement spreading to city centres across the country, the South Americans knew the time was right.
Late on April 2, 2012, the anniversary of their first invasion, Argentine Special Forces landed on a deserted beach south of Port Stanley. By the early hours of the following morning, they had stormed the nearby British barracks and were heading for Government House.
In London, the reaction was bedlam. In a packed House of Commons, David Cameron promised he would stop at nothing 'to get our islands back'.
But already cracks were forming. On the streets of London, anarchist protesters chanted 'Give Them Back!'
And on the floor of the Commons, Labour's Ed Miliband told MPs that Britain should not fire a single shot without the approval of the United Nations.
By the middle of April, Mr Cameron had given his approval to the formation of a task force to retake the Falklands. But already it was obvious that it would be a far more desperate undertaking than it had been under Mrs Thatcher.
Without Harrier jump jets or aircraft carriers, the Prime Minister's naval chiefs explained, the mission would be hazardous to say the least.
What was more, the national mood had never been more divided, and even the battle for public opinion would be a close-run thing.
When Mr Cameron told the Royal Navy to go ahead anyway, the Lib Dem Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne, walked out of the Cabinet. But that was now the least of the Coalition's worries.
Their spin doctors ensured that the departure of the flotilla was a good show, though even sympathetic observers found the spectacle of Sir Steve Redgrave, who had been roped in to encourage the troops from his rowing boat, frankly bizarre.
But Britain was losing the struggle for world opinion. In the U.S., Barack Obama, facing a tough re-election battle, promised audiences that he would stay out of the conflict.
'My predecessors allowed themselves to be dragged into foreign conflicts of which we know nothing,' he said to loud cheers. 'I will not make the same mistake. My motto is simple: America first.'
Most South Americans naturally backed Argentina. What was shocking, though, was that the EU failed to voice its support for Britain.
Indeed, even before the Task Force had reached Ascension Island, President Sarkozy had made a dramatic intervention that horrified British observers.
Twenty years before, the French had provided political support for Britain, allowing Harrier pilots to train against the French aircraft used by Argentina — though in a typically cynical Parisian twist, it was the French-made Exocet missiles that did so much damage to British ships. But now the mood was very different.
'Our British friends need to learn that their days of glory are over,' said Mr Sarkozy.
'The Malvinas — for so we should call them — properly belong to Argentina. It is mere arrogance for mon cher David to think otherwise.'
As the temperature mounted, so the European pressure grew.
Just days before the Euro 2012 football tournament was scheduled to start, Uefa President Michel Platini announced that England had been kicked out of the tournament — because, the Frenchman said, half-suppressing a smirk, the team posed an insurmountable 'security risk'.
For the Coalition, the European betrayal was a dagger in the heart. And in a sign of the ugly public mood, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, the Spanish wife of the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, was subjected to a hail of vile abuse on the streets of London.
The next day saw Mr Clegg turn up at Cabinet with red-rimmed eyes. And when the Prime Minister next rose to speak in the Commons, his deputy was absent.
His presence, Mr Cameron said, would have been a 'distraction'. But there could be no distraction from the disaster unfolding in the South Atlantic.
The Task Force was a pale shadow of its incarnation in 1982. Back then, Britain had a total of 92 destroyers, frigates, attack submarines and amphibious ships. But thanks to years of cuts, by 2011 it had just 33.
Indeed, plans to send Britain's nuclear submarines had to be scrapped when it transpired that, thanks to the decision to lift the ban on women serving beneath the waves, they were undergoing a £3 million refit to make them 'female friendly'.
What followed was a disaster. The air war went the Argentines' way; three British ships were sunk; and when, in desperation, commanders mounted a last-ditch landing at San Carlos Bay, the British troops were picked off by their South American adversaries.
Nobody doubted the courage or expertise of our fighting men and women. The tragedy was that they had been stabbed in the back, betrayed by a government that had slashed defence spending to the bone.
By then, the Coalition was in meltdown. Speaking in the Commons on May 12, Ed Miliband insisted that it was time for Britain to 'face reality'.
A few hours later, the Lib Dems announced that they were leaving the Coalition and hoped to form a new government with Labour. The very next afternoon, as Samantha Cameron was carrying her Smythson luggage out of Downing Street, President Obama told a campaign meeting in Yorktown that the 'British Empire is over'.
In Buenos Aires, cheering crowds poured into the streets.
'Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the Marines,' Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner told Argentine television.
In London, however, there were only tears. Some 649 British servicemen had been killed, with more than 1,000 wounded and no fewer than 11,313 taken prisoner and shipped to an internment camp outside Buenos Aires.
News that Prince Harry — who had insisted on serving on the front line — had been captured seemed only to pile humiliation on humiliation.
And though the Argentines promised to release him in time for the Olympics, the day has come and yet he is still in captivity.
For Britain, the war has been the ultimate calamity. Our economy is in ruins, our national morale is at rock bottom and our reputation is in tatters.
Many experts insist that it could have been so different if only the Government had taken heed of the warnings, stiffened the Falklands defences and remembered their duty to defend Her Majesty's people.
But on the lonely streets of what was once Port Stanley, there is no appetite for what-if scenarios. There is only the sadness of defeat and the bitter taste of occupation.
Under the UN resettlement plan, the English-speaking islanders will soon be gone.
Soon enough, too, there will be no more reminders of a British presence that lasted for hundreds of years.
The air is cold; the bars are empty. And in the night air there is just the lingering sound of the tango, like some mournful lament for what might have been.
Falkland Islands: Prince Harry captured, 600 of our soldiers killed - as imagined by Dominic Sandbrook | Mail Online
The date is July 27, 2012, and in London the Olympic Games are about to begin. For months, the British people have been looking forward to the jamboree of patriotic enthusiasm.
But now that the day is here, the mood feels heavy with gloom. The crowds are thin, the drizzle pours down. The Union Flags hang forlornly in the dull breeze.
Even the nation's new Prime Minister, the blinking, stammering Ed Miliband, cuts a remarkably limp figure, a melancholy leader for a nation sunk in misery.
Several thousand miles away, across the cold seas of the South Atlantic, the atmosphere could hardly be more different. For in the capital of the Islas Malvinas, the archipelago formerly known as the Falkland Islands, an Argentine victory parade is underway.
Though victory in the Second Falklands War was secured only a few weeks ago, the islands' conquerors have already been busy.
At the tiny airport that serves Puerto Argentino — formerly Port Stanley — a gigantic mural commemorates the soldiers from the mainland who lost their lives.
Beside the old Anglican cathedral, draped with a massive blue-and-white flag, the statue of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner gazes impassively out to sea.
For the Iron Lady, as her adoring country-men call her, the war was a turning point, securing her place in South American history for all time.
But for Britain, battered by months of economic austerity, it was a tempest that swept away the Coalition government and destroyed any lingering illusions that the United Kingdom was still a serious power.
As the Argentine troops parade triumphantly down Avenida Leopoldo Galtieri, a few miserable islanders stand and watch. Many have already booked their flights back to Britain, sick of the Spanish road signs and posters of Diego Maradona.
The tragic irony, of course, is that we should have seen it coming.
When in December 2011, the South American trading bloc Mercosur (comprising Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) voted to ban boats flying the Falklands flag from docking in their ports, many people shrugged their shoulders.
But a few brave souls warned that this was merely the latest shot in a diplomatic campaign that, if left unchecked, could turn into outright war.
As far back as February 2010, Mrs Kirchner had begun sabre-rattling over Britain's supposedly 'illegal' oil drilling off the Falklands. With her own economy sunk in crisis and oil experts predicting a windfall beneath the Atlantic, the Argentine president was playing a long game.
Meanwhile, military experts warned the Coalition that its projected cuts would make defending the islands simply impossible.
Under the terms of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the government had committed itself to scrapping the Harrier Jump Jets and decommissioning the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, effectively hobbling its capacity to strike back against an Argentine invasion.
In October 2010, Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward, the architect of victory in the South Atlantic in 1982, warned that a surprise attack would be 'highly likely to succeed'.
Thanks to the swingeing cuts, he insisted, the Argentines could take the islands 'with barely a shot being fired'.
But to their eternal shame, the Coalition ignored his warnings. And they even ignored an even more aggressive bout of sabre-rattling from Mrs Kirchner, who declared the following summer that Britain was merely a 'crude colonial power in decline'.
All this, however, was merely a taste of what was to come.
For as 2011 neared its end, the Argentine president was keeping a close eye on events in Europe.
Heartened by the freezing of relations between Britain and its Continental partners, Mrs Kirchner calculated that the rest of the European Union would never back Britain's claims to the disputed islands.
Indeed, discreet signals from Paris indicated that President Nicolas Sarkozy would look kindly on an Argentine invasion, since it would bring David Cameron to heel. Over Christmas and New Year, Argentina's military chiefs drew up their plans.
The islands, they told their president, were protected only by 1,000 British soldiers, four Typhoon fighter jets, a warship, and, from time to time, a nuclear submarine.
'Thanks to the cuts, there is little chance that the British would muster an adequate response to the liberation of the Malvinas,' wrote her principal military adviser. 'What is more, the international position has never been more favourable. If we strike now, we will enjoy the support of our neighbours as well as the muted encouragement of Great Britain's European rivals.'
What appealed to Mrs Kirchner was the fact that the spring of 2012 would mark the 30th anniversary of the first Falklands War, in which Margaret Thatcher's intrepid British task force had retaken the islands.
Indeed, some reports suggest that it was her outrage at Meryl Streep's triumph at the Oscars for the Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady that made up the Argentine president's mind.
As the weeks progressed, Argentine intelligence kept a close eye on events in Britain. Behind the scenes, they reported, the Coalition was increasingly divided.
And with Britain's economy plunging back into recession, Vince Cable quitting the Cabinet and the anti-capitalist Occupy movement spreading to city centres across the country, the South Americans knew the time was right.
Late on April 2, 2012, the anniversary of their first invasion, Argentine Special Forces landed on a deserted beach south of Port Stanley. By the early hours of the following morning, they had stormed the nearby British barracks and were heading for Government House.
In London, the reaction was bedlam. In a packed House of Commons, David Cameron promised he would stop at nothing 'to get our islands back'.
But already cracks were forming. On the streets of London, anarchist protesters chanted 'Give Them Back!'
And on the floor of the Commons, Labour's Ed Miliband told MPs that Britain should not fire a single shot without the approval of the United Nations.
By the middle of April, Mr Cameron had given his approval to the formation of a task force to retake the Falklands. But already it was obvious that it would be a far more desperate undertaking than it had been under Mrs Thatcher.
Without Harrier jump jets or aircraft carriers, the Prime Minister's naval chiefs explained, the mission would be hazardous to say the least.
What was more, the national mood had never been more divided, and even the battle for public opinion would be a close-run thing.
When Mr Cameron told the Royal Navy to go ahead anyway, the Lib Dem Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne, walked out of the Cabinet. But that was now the least of the Coalition's worries.
Their spin doctors ensured that the departure of the flotilla was a good show, though even sympathetic observers found the spectacle of Sir Steve Redgrave, who had been roped in to encourage the troops from his rowing boat, frankly bizarre.
But Britain was losing the struggle for world opinion. In the U.S., Barack Obama, facing a tough re-election battle, promised audiences that he would stay out of the conflict.
'My predecessors allowed themselves to be dragged into foreign conflicts of which we know nothing,' he said to loud cheers. 'I will not make the same mistake. My motto is simple: America first.'
Most South Americans naturally backed Argentina. What was shocking, though, was that the EU failed to voice its support for Britain.
Indeed, even before the Task Force had reached Ascension Island, President Sarkozy had made a dramatic intervention that horrified British observers.
Twenty years before, the French had provided political support for Britain, allowing Harrier pilots to train against the French aircraft used by Argentina — though in a typically cynical Parisian twist, it was the French-made Exocet missiles that did so much damage to British ships. But now the mood was very different.
'Our British friends need to learn that their days of glory are over,' said Mr Sarkozy.
'The Malvinas — for so we should call them — properly belong to Argentina. It is mere arrogance for mon cher David to think otherwise.'
As the temperature mounted, so the European pressure grew.
Just days before the Euro 2012 football tournament was scheduled to start, Uefa President Michel Platini announced that England had been kicked out of the tournament — because, the Frenchman said, half-suppressing a smirk, the team posed an insurmountable 'security risk'.
For the Coalition, the European betrayal was a dagger in the heart. And in a sign of the ugly public mood, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, the Spanish wife of the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, was subjected to a hail of vile abuse on the streets of London.
The next day saw Mr Clegg turn up at Cabinet with red-rimmed eyes. And when the Prime Minister next rose to speak in the Commons, his deputy was absent.
His presence, Mr Cameron said, would have been a 'distraction'. But there could be no distraction from the disaster unfolding in the South Atlantic.
The Task Force was a pale shadow of its incarnation in 1982. Back then, Britain had a total of 92 destroyers, frigates, attack submarines and amphibious ships. But thanks to years of cuts, by 2011 it had just 33.
Indeed, plans to send Britain's nuclear submarines had to be scrapped when it transpired that, thanks to the decision to lift the ban on women serving beneath the waves, they were undergoing a £3 million refit to make them 'female friendly'.
What followed was a disaster. The air war went the Argentines' way; three British ships were sunk; and when, in desperation, commanders mounted a last-ditch landing at San Carlos Bay, the British troops were picked off by their South American adversaries.
Nobody doubted the courage or expertise of our fighting men and women. The tragedy was that they had been stabbed in the back, betrayed by a government that had slashed defence spending to the bone.
By then, the Coalition was in meltdown. Speaking in the Commons on May 12, Ed Miliband insisted that it was time for Britain to 'face reality'.
A few hours later, the Lib Dems announced that they were leaving the Coalition and hoped to form a new government with Labour. The very next afternoon, as Samantha Cameron was carrying her Smythson luggage out of Downing Street, President Obama told a campaign meeting in Yorktown that the 'British Empire is over'.
In Buenos Aires, cheering crowds poured into the streets.
'Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the Marines,' Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner told Argentine television.
In London, however, there were only tears. Some 649 British servicemen had been killed, with more than 1,000 wounded and no fewer than 11,313 taken prisoner and shipped to an internment camp outside Buenos Aires.
News that Prince Harry — who had insisted on serving on the front line — had been captured seemed only to pile humiliation on humiliation.
And though the Argentines promised to release him in time for the Olympics, the day has come and yet he is still in captivity.
For Britain, the war has been the ultimate calamity. Our economy is in ruins, our national morale is at rock bottom and our reputation is in tatters.
Many experts insist that it could have been so different if only the Government had taken heed of the warnings, stiffened the Falklands defences and remembered their duty to defend Her Majesty's people.
But on the lonely streets of what was once Port Stanley, there is no appetite for what-if scenarios. There is only the sadness of defeat and the bitter taste of occupation.
Under the UN resettlement plan, the English-speaking islanders will soon be gone.
Soon enough, too, there will be no more reminders of a British presence that lasted for hundreds of years.
The air is cold; the bars are empty. And in the night air there is just the lingering sound of the tango, like some mournful lament for what might have been.
Falkland Islands: Prince Harry captured, 600 of our soldiers killed - as imagined by Dominic Sandbrook | Mail Online
Fecking stupid article from the mail.
They are closer to the United States but are very British - and very wealthy, per capita Bermuda is so wealthy it is astonishing - something like $175,000 per capita.
what a vile pile of shite
argentina's army has been dismanteled since the return to democracy in 1983, our fire power is lower than the bolivian police force
we havent replaced the mirages used in 1982, and there's no way the argentinians will back another war
that article is written only to inflame the english men
argentina's army has been dismanteled since the return to democracy in 1983, our fire power is lower than the bolivian police force
we havent replaced the mirages used in 1982, and there's no way the argentinians will back another war
that article is written only to inflame the english men
What is with the Daily Mail and their alternative futures? I read one a couple of weeks ago where they 'foresaw' the EU becoming fascist and that the French in league with the Germans would go to war with everybody. Every other day of the year but that one they laugh at the French military but on this one they were saying the British Isles would get conquered by them.
I have no problem with them creating their 'doomsday of the week' scenarios but at least be accurate about it, thousands of people will now think such a tale is true to life which it is most definately not, the amount of 'plot holes' is ridiculous.
As much as the Guardian annoys me sometimes they never come up with rubbish like this.
I have no problem with them creating their 'doomsday of the week' scenarios but at least be accurate about it, thousands of people will now think such a tale is true to life which it is most definately not, the amount of 'plot holes' is ridiculous.
As much as the Guardian annoys me sometimes they never come up with rubbish like this.
The Daily Mail's reputation is that it caters to middle class and middle and old aged women.
A perfect description and raison d'etre of the paper.
You Argie men are already flaming....
Do the Mail research any of their articles?
i see
i think that argentina will complain about anything england does in the islands because otherwise it can be said we assented it
in diplomacy, if you dont protest you assent, and if so, the other country acquires the right to keep doing whatever he was doing
and if my memorie doesn't fail me, all this started when england began exploring the are in search of oil
It isn't an article, it is 'fan fiction' essentially, never does a Saturday go by where they don't fictionalise 'the future' writing about how we are all going to die.
indeed, in argentina we have more gays than floor tiles
It certainly sparked up then, around two years or so ago now - I recall Gordon Brown doing what he does best giving Kirchner the cold shoulder.
It does fail you, it started when the Falklands gave liscences to companies to explore for oil after initial tests suggested the area is rich in oil. Argentinean governmnt then remebered they wanted the islands back all of a sudden and are trying various tricks t make it happen.
wow the booze is getting to me already. I'll be over there fighting them off on the beaches with my trusty Daily Mail issue bayonet.
why do you say it fails me? i said, in fewer words and in bad english, the same