I interprent this as a desperate argument that again shows that there are no valid argument for UK having nukes anylonger.
UK with a nuclear arsenal is almost as illegitime and stupid as UK holding a permanent memberseat in the United Nations Security Council
I think you should tell us why you’re so anti-UK, and also expand on your “C Europe” location.
He can’t still be sore about the fall of the Habsburgs, and Britain taking the final Emperor Karl I into custody, surely?
As long as the French maintain their arsenal, England can never disarm. It’s just that simple.
(Tongue firmly planted in cheek. Mostly.)
South Africa did eliminate it’s small nuclear stockpile.
As a UK person, my thought is that we simply spend too much on them, that such money would go a long way to operating far more effective military forces, would employ more people and in the longer run would send those people back into society having done their time as good role models.
As for strategy, well, we have them, they are not going away, and the folk who really do pull the strings want them - until we change the folk at those levels, we are stuck with them, and woe betide any political party who tries as the media will mysteriously all have exactly the same opinion and act in a concerted way to ensure they are never elected - or haven’t you noticed what happened to the Labour Party whilts the Thatcher years rolled by?
Um, they became steadily more batshit insane such that no-one in possession of a fraction of his marbles would have dreamed of electing them, until finally the penny dropped and they realized that if they ever wanted to govern again they would have to become approximately what the electorate wanted, and also sling a metric shitload of dirt at the other lot?
What did this have to do with media reporting of aspirations of unilateral nuclear disarmament?
That’s fine, I interpret your posts akin to Chamberlain’s infamous ``peace in our time" speech.
Presumably you missed the part about Putin’s Russia? The world’s transifxed on Muslim terrorism, but it’s what’s happening east of Europe that should be the real cause for concern. The UK’s been repeatedly buzzed by Soviet aircraft this last year, the first time since the end of the Cold War, anti-West rhetoric is increasing, Russia’s flexing its muscles in eastern Europe, and the latest Russian elections are pretty much universally recognised as a sham.
Not really the time to don the tie-dye tee-shirts and dispense with washing for a month, is it?
No, the two are related. Although, I do believe that the SC should be expanded to reflect the new nuclear powers (India, Pakistan etc.).
What it has to do with media reporting is simple, you cannot get elected if you do not have some of the media with you.
It is that simple.
How do you know they were batshit insane, because the media told you so.
I wonder what the effect would have been had the media reported the true reasons why the Falklands was happened?
It may come as a surprise to you, but the Tories were dead set to lose the second term election, the opinion polls showed that there would highly likely be no Tory MPs returned, and that was just six months before the Falklands war.
The economy did not change before or after that war, and unemployment was still rising, but following the entirely predictable and wholly preventable Falklands war, almost every day the media never failed to remind us of the ‘Falklands factor’.
The media whipped up the nationalist element, Jim Callaghan was something of an old style Labour person and something of a dinosaur, but he was right when he predicted that the winner of that election would reap the benefits of North Sea oil revenues and this would keep the economy afloat no matter how badly or well things went.
The Labour unilateral disarmanent policy was seized upon and the media, worked actively against them, to the extent of printing some extremely dubious stories.
No British political party will get elected without media support, not a hope, and any party that dares to have a policy of nuclear disarmament whilst the power brokers still feel there is a need to have nuclear weaponry will find they will not get that media support.
You’ll notice that once Labour got rid of that disarmement policy it got media support, you may even remember all those meetings between Blair and Rupert Murdoch, I certainly do.
Or maybe you are not aware that, for example, MI5 actually has an office in the Daily Telegraph premises, and has done for years - its not even sinister since it is so widely known.
Perhaps you should look up Con Couglin.
http://nujnewmedia.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-telegraphs-political-editor-mi6.html
http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi6.eu_stel_27apr1997.html
You’ll also remember that is was the Daily Telegraph that printed those laughable allegations about the George Galloway dossier that was found in the burned out ruin of the Iraqi information ministry, the only one that survived in a fire that was intense enough to destroy everything else, this is the same newspaper that Galloway sued for libel over this allegation, and he won, yep, that very same newspaper.
This isn’t paranoia, just an acceptance of the facts, which are that in Western democracies, government agencies do have an interest in monitoring media output and offering ‘guidance’ when the need arises.
It would have been a huge strategic blow to NATO, and to the nuclear deterrant had Labour been elected, apart from the military value there would always be the worry of a knock on effect which might have damaged NATO still further, especially in the light of Australia and New Zealands policies on the presence of nuclear weapons in their territorial waters.
Of course you will not know about the 3 monthly report by MI5 that were used to brief the BBC director General, even though this is also well known and has been openly reported, or that MI5 routinely vet senior BBC staff, again widely reported at least as far back as 1985.
The fact is, Labour nuclear disarmanent committments were seen as a threat to our national security, and it was important to some folk that they were not elected, media portrayal of Labour was crucial to that.
I really do not know why anyone would be surprised at that either, I can’t even say I am all that worried since this is the sort of thing that states have always done and will continue to do - it is part of the fabric of the national life, maybe one day they will stop a Pol Pot or somesuch from gaining office, or prevent a BNP government.
Personally I think it would be an irresponsible nation that allowed its media to behave unchecked, and part of the oversight will have to be using intelligence services.
You might also look up the activities of the publisher Ampersand.
Meantime to keep you entertained,
For some reason, I read the OP as “why don’t anyone question Britains nuklear arse”.
Bottom line is, that’s a scary image.
Besides, if the UK gave up its nukes, the Argentinians would feel free to occupy the Isle of Man, or something.
I must’ve napped through that afternoon they briefly slipped out of being a dictatorship.
Anyhoo, if you can’t trust the limey wanking sheep-shagging toff-tossers, who can you trust?
:dubious:
It’s the height of the Cold War, Russia’s on our doorstep, and the reason why nobody wanted to disarm our nuclear deterrant was because of media manipulation?
And, a decent cite for the Daily Telegraph building claim, please.
What exactly are we supposed to be examining here? The first page reports that the Telegraph editor has been accused of being an MI* plant. Are we to take accusations as proof of anything, now? There’s no smoke without fire?
The second page, ironically transcribed from the Sunday Telegraph (!), and hosted by the Cambridge Clarion, an organisation whose raison d’etre is to stop the bombing of Afghanistan (a pretty shaky foundation - Afghanistan? Iraq maybe, but Afghanistan is a just and legal war, IMO) presents an uncited series of accusations that Britain’s entry into the EEC was influenced by MI6 and the CIA.
Sorry, you’ll have to do better. That’s shit.
There are only eight, or maybe nine, sovereign states in the entire world?
Obviously not, but nuclear armed countries (and those states that are sheltered by treaty, friendship or location) are just that wee bit more confident that their sovereignty is inviolate. I can understand why Iran wants nukes.
If noone wanted to disarm our nuclear deterrant then why is it that Labour voted to make it their policy ? That sounds like a lot more people than ‘nobody’ to me.
Remember that in the 1983, Thatcher second term that Labour got enough votes to claim 209 seats, this was a heavy defeat by anyones books but since they were voting on Labour policy which included unilateral disarmament, it can hardly be described in your terms and ‘no-one’, heck, the Conservatives didn’t get a majority of the population, so that is far from no-one.
As for it being the height of the cold war, no it wasn’t the Cuba crisis would be the height by any measure, I would expect most observers would put the period of the Berlin airlift as a period of greater tension too.
As for the existance of spies in the British media, specifically the Daily Telegraph,
Note the article where disinformation from the Telegraph has appeared, and the claims, even if you discard the link itself - those articles did exist.
http://nujnewmedia.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-telegraphs-political-editor-mi6.html
http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=439
Its also standard practice to tar those who oppose your aims with any allegation you can, which is what the Telegraph did with George Galloway, and even if you despise the man, and many do, it shows the lengths our media will go to discredit someone whilst promoting a war,
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article23048.ece
As for manipulation of the media by MI6, don’t make me laugh, of course its done, mostly with planted stories, but often with pleny of collaboration and cooperation from the media themselves,
I notice that you haven’t refuted the claim that intelligence services vet senior BBC managers, no surprise since vetting is carried out on a very wide range of public officials, but those other public officials are usually in some capacity of trust that could affect their ability to do their job or some other security risk, such as police, prison staff and the like - not because they are in the upper echelons of a media outlet.
You have not refuted my allegation that prior to the Falklands war the Thatcher government had an approavl rating of between 16% to 24% depending upon your source.
You have not refuted my allegation that the Falklands war was entirely predictable and preventable, which would naturally lead on to asking if these are true, then why was it not prevented?
I am amazed that anyone would think that our intelligence services are not involved with monitoring, manipulating and collaberating with our media, who do you think made the recommendations about gagging the IRA ? and who do you imagine wrote the report and did the analysis?
Intelligence influence over the media happens and will continue, sometimes overt and others less so and it has always been that way, and always will be.
And remind me how many times Labour were elected with such a policy? Exactly zero times. The majority of people didn’t want to disarm our nuclear deterrant. There will always be a lunatic fringe in any country of any size. Labour catered to that fringe in the 80’s, and payed the price for it.
It might comfort you to think that Labour were unelectable because of the secret machinations of a shadowy journalistic cabal, but it simply isn’t the truth.
First, there’s whole sections of the country that will vote Labour in every election, no matter what, but you know that already, coming from Yorkshire. My own home constituency is one, largely due to the latent support for ``the party of the unions". It’s shit - Labour could nuke Wigan and they’d still be elected here. I wouldn’t read too much into seats being returned for Labour, especially with the caveat that they suffered a heavy defeat.
:rolleyes:
The Cold War was still raging. Disarming the nuclear deterrant was a non-starter. Sorry you can’t accept that.
Arf! More accusations! Not a single shred of evidence presented amongst them, neither! This is a joke.
Again, not a single piece of evidence presented in any of the three links!
Fallacy of hasty generalisation? Do you have any evidence that MI6 was even behind the story, anyway?
Yep:
Poll appears showing Labour administration on the rocks, due to us being in Iraq, Reid comes out with some uncited shit about ``rogue elements" in the Intelligence Community undermining the government and planting doubt about the quality of intelligence leading us into Iraq :rolleyes:
Yeah, I’m convinced!
Here’s the thing: I don’t have to refute all your arguments to show you’re full of shit. Even a stopped watch is right twice a day.
You didn’t provide an iota of evidence showing that, nor about your claim that the economy was stagnant before or after the war, nor your claim about economic growth in the 80’s largely being down to NS oil.
In fact, your posts are following a familiar pattern, a lengthy missive with largely uncorroborated claims, or claims with evidence that, whilst appearing to be corroborative, mostly do not back up your claims, or are of such poor quality, that it’s hard to take you seriously.
Someone fucked up? I know you have a hard-on for this subject, and love to post at length on it, but please refrain, I can’t be bothered wading through another multi-page post on the lead up to the war in the Falklands.
Minor correction. The policy you are thinking of only applied in New Zealand. Australia never followed suit and continued to host nuclear-armed American ships in Australian ports.
You don’t think our economy was down the pan back in 1981 !
Good god, interest rates rising, exports falling, unemployment at over 2 million and rising - twice the number that Thatcher herself had condemned the Labour administration, and her poll rating lower than any other Prime minister before her.
I’ll remind you, in 1980 our inflation was at 27%, uneployment was rising from 1 millions, and would continue upward to an official figure of 3 millions five years later, and that is not counting all the ‘adjustments’ that the Tories made to enable ‘accurate calculations’.Our economic output during 1979-1980 fell by 17%
If you do not believe that in 1981 our economy was going down the pan, then take it from the best source possible,
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/commentary/displaydocument.asp?docid=110696
Sorry you must have been asleep during this period.
We were in a massive recession at the time, how you could not have noticed it is beyond me, no serious analyst would suggest otherwise.
As for somebody screwing up prior to the Falklands war, sorry but I don’t buy it, three times the Argentine had previously prepared for war, three times previous administrations had sent forces down to that area as a deterrant, and on the fourth they somehow forgot ? Don’t make me laugh, now you are taking the mickey, senior foreign office officials and JIC do not make mistakes of that magnitude.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1879.html
There is hardly a single serious commentator who does not accept that had there not been a Falklands war that was successfully prosecuted, Thatcher would never have been re-elected, and back in 1981 it was clear that something along those lines would be needed, you really didn’t have to be a genius to see that back then.
As your comment that a majority did not support nuclear disarmament well it seems you have now changed your stance haven’t you? because you originally stated that ‘nobody’ supported the Labour policy of Nuclear dismament, I have pretty comprehensively disproven that comment of yours, in fact 24% of the electorate voted for such a policy, that is far far away from ‘nobody’ and really it does not matter how you dress it up. Thank you for changing your position, but don’t think I missed you doing so.
Here is some evidence about oil keeping Thatcher afloat,
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/2167/north-sea-oil.html
There is a huge amount more, I will do you the dignity of allowing you to find this for yourself, but you will find that I am quite correct.
I totally agree that nuclear disarmament was a terrible policy at the time, I don’t think it is a great one even now, so what?
24% of the electorate had a differant opinion, but if the Falklands war had not happened that would have been uncomfortably close to call, there is little doubt Thatcher would have been out of office, its just a case of wether the Social Democrats could have held the balance of power and prevented Labour from carrying it out.
What the fuck! Thatcher came into power in May 1979, and you’re quoting inflation figures for 1980 to try to show her tenure as unremarkable? What sort of shit is this?
Well, apparently they don’t make mistakes of that magnitude, until they do.
Wait, so in fact there are serious social commentators who accept that Thatcher would have been elected, regardless? And really, are we judging the prevailing opinion amongst political scientists by what www.u-s-history.com says? Another uncited article from you? You’re getting predictable.
Yes, when I used ``nobody", I really did mean that nobody in the entire country supported nuclear disarmanent, even though I knew full well that Labour had it as part of their election campaign.
Clearly, I wasn’t being hyperbolic, or using any other mode of recognised rhetorical device. This shouldn’t, of course, be obvious, to somebody who knew that 76% (over three quarters) of the electorate voted against such a policy or were too ambivalent to bother voting.
First, the most reliable cite, the second one, doesn’t even support your position! It’s talking about the local economy around Aberdeen, not the whole economy of the UK. When it does mention the national economy, it does so only to mention that oil is encouraging “recent” economic growth, i.e. from 2000 onwards, ten years after Thatcher left office :smack:
Second, your first cite, again, largely unreferenced, only mentions that some commentators and economists think that NS oil underpinned Thatcherism. It can’t even claim that most economists and commentators believe this.
Hardly convincing.
Actually when you look at the figure for her first term of office, even Thatcher herself says the situation was not good in terms of numbers around 1981, it isn’t a secret and Thatcher herself would simply say that was the price to be paid to get rid of socialist economics such as closing down highly subsidised state companies.
Can’t you accept that?
It is clear that oil revenue was an immense help, you can look at many many sites, look up North Sea oil and Thatcher as search terms, I won’t dishonour you by showing my links as you’ll only accuse me of being biased, look for yourself.
You could argue Thacther was essential in changing or revitalising this country, its a debateable point, some say it had to be done, others say it didn’t need to be done in such a brutal way, but in any event had it not been for a successful war, Thatcher would not have been reelected, this is something that we can speculate what might have happened, but history shows she came out on top.
Thatcher had a great deal of luck, but then you could say that for most successful politicians, and its what you do with your luck that counts.
She was damned lucky to win in the Falklands(you may not know how close it was), however that war simply need not have happened, was it luck that she allowed the Argentine to land there ? Given that we had intelligence warning weeks and months ahead - this is the pattern that had operated on four previous occasions, methinks it a bit of an eyebrow raiser to believe we didn’t know about it.