funny how on the BBC website the news about the falklands talks about this



yet SKY news reports this



So much for the special relationship when it came to the crunch America was more interested in keeping its good relationship with Latin America than with Britain. A very significant difference of opinion as opposed to that put out by the beeb.

She had an election to win.

You know, 'Rule Britannia', flag waving, and all that bollox.

It worked.

Maybe you should have read the other released dispatches, as winning an election wasn't on her mind.

I know, she was all consumed by the record unemploment she'd created since the 1930's.

Two reports three weeks apart (which was a long time in the conflict) which are probably both absolutely true, the BBC choose to select one, Sky the other, does it show political bias or editorial choice, do you seriously not read everything in the knowledge that someone has specifically selected and/or written the article with a viewpoint in mind to present to you ?

The truth is usually gathered by reading all presentations and questioning all you read/view unless the individual wishes to be deliberately swayed in one direction or another (football supporter politics).

But you knew that anyway.

How do the two stories timeline? Are they concurrent or does one preceed the other?


Not enough info, but:

'News reporting is biased'

You're surprised by this?

When the highest elected parliamentarians can mislead government and the populi news reporters have nothing to worry about.

They were two news reports which came out today and were chosen to be edited the way they were. They are both based on the release of the paers.

The BBC one i would say presents a very partial view which is innacurate.
I agree with you that you cannot really believe the media and that you need to check different sources BUT it is pretty significant the differences.

This is important both at the time and for now.

When you think about the debate about Europe which is going on for the BBC to highlight a disagreement with France that was easily solved which will be ammo for the eurosceptics compared to the downgrading of the role of the USA in the Falklands crisis when lots of the eurosceptics argue we should be forging closer links with rather than Europe shows that the realpolotik is somewhat different.

Europe is more likely to be a natural ally / trading partner for the UK than America will be as when it comes to the crunch the USA will go its own way

I never realised that she was PM for so long.

It felt like it to many of us, trust me.

The media is biased in all kinds off fields, not just international relations or politics. It is very biased in the corporate playground too.

A friend of mine recently mentioned that back in early 1982, in the back pages of the FT, he read a couple of column inches with regards to potential oil discoveries in the South Atlantic around a bunch of Islands he's never heard of. A few months later, we all know what happened. If you look now, there are oil explorations all round the Falklands. Here's an interesting pdf from the London School of Economics www2.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publication ... freije.pdf

A friend of mine recently mentioned that back in early 1982, in the back pages of the FT, he read a couple of column inches with regards to potential oil discoveries in the South Atlantic around a bunch of Islands he's never heard of. A few months later, we all know what happened. If you look now, there are oil explorations all round the Falklands. Here's an interesting pdf from the London School of Economics www2.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publication ... freije.pdf

Complete horse, at any other time we would have left a tiny spec on the map to its fate and negotiated a hand over, being well behind in the polls and looking like being ousted at the impending election was very much on her mind.

See Hong Kong, where the wishes of the residents counted for squat when it came to making a sacrifice to keep the Chinese sweet.

Great point.

As for the BBC it's really plummeted over the past decade or perhaps that's just me being more aware of media bias than. Whatever the case, I'm lost to remember the last time their news team blew the lid off something. The only time, it seems, when the BBC does tackle an issue it's due to [iPanorama[/i rather than a news story they've broken. Same with comedy. Since Sachsgate, it's comedy has been mediocre with the odd exception. This is exactly how the governments would like it though. A barely critical public service news source that is gradually getting less and less relevant, being superseded by any number of online news outlets. I'm just wondering when it's going to get put up for privatisation.

Tony Blair said he would fought the war too. Can't recall him ever needing to win an election after being well behind in the polls.

Tony Blair wasn't even a Member of Parliament when the Falklands Confilict was started and won.

So what? He was asked whether he would have done the same thing as Thatcher and he confirmed he would have, so for Big Graeme to say "at any other time we would have left a tiny spec on the map to its fate and negotiated a hand over", is not the case, as if Blair had been in office he would have also done as Thatcher had.

I don't see your relevance, WTF has it got to do with Tony Blair, the PM was Margaret Thatcher, the Government was a Conservative one, it was the decision of the MP's in the Commons at that moment in time as was the decision to invade Iraq at the time of Blairs government - you can't defend decisions in hindsight by attributing them to people who weren't even part of the decision making process.


And when I say "the decision of MP's in the Commons" I include MP's of all party's.

Just not the ones who weren't actually MP's at the time.

This thing about Thatcher winning in 1983 because of the Falklands is a bit of a myth. There was no reason to believe at the time that a war would help reelection anyway - you would have thought that Churchill would have benefited from a khaki election, after winning WW2, but he got voted out in a landslide defeat by Attlee in 1945.

But also from a tactical point of view, fighting the Falklands war was a massive political risk for Thatcher. If we had lost she would almost certainly have had to resign and a lot of the advice she was receiving was that this was going to be a very difficult fight to win. The safe political option would have been to go for some 'diplomatic settlement' that accepted the Argentinan invasion, and Thatcher (rightly) was not prepared to accept that.

I am not a Thatcher lover by any means but you have to get the facts straight over why she won in 1983. It was basically the same reason she won a majority of over 100 in 1987, when there was no Falklands and no 'longest suicide note in history' Labour manifesto and no Michael Foot. It was because the opposition was split. The SDP-Liberal Alliance hoovered up close to a quarter of the electorates votes in those elections, because of first past the post they didn't get that many seats of course, but it meant they ate away the left/centre left vote. Meanwhile on the opposite side, Thatcher getting 42% or so was able to win landslides.

What proof of this is there?

"at any other time we would have left a tiny spec on the map to its fate and negotiated a hand over"

The Falklands campaign and victory was a helpful contributory factor to her election success as were several of the other points you have duly noted.
The 'Gang of Four' turncoats, Doctor Death, Woy Jenkins, Williams and Rodgers, most definitely did immense damage.

Proof ?

Its his opinion you idiot.

Quote ="Big Graeme"Complete horse, at any other time we would have left a tiny spec on the map to its fate and negotiated a hand over, being well behind in the polls and looking like being ousted at the impending election was very much on her mind.'" More myths: the earliest poll taken (7 April 1982) after the Falklands invasion (2 April) had the polls at: CON 31.5%, LAB 29.0%, SDP/LIB 37.0%. So given that the Tories had a small lead over Labour at the time and were only behind the Alliance in the polls, why take such a political risk in fighting a war you have a high chance of losing? It wasn't in early 1982 that Thatcher was well behind in the polls, it was in 1980. In December 1980 it was CON 32.0%, LAB 56.0%, LIB 11.0%. The big turning point in the polls, which shredded Labour, was the formation of the Alliance in early 1981. Labour dropped to the mid 30s after that. During the next term, Thatcher was in more trouble in the polls in 1986 than she was in 1982, she was ten points down on Kinnock's Labour a year away from the 1987 election but still won 100 seat majority, there was no 'Falklands factor' then. Remember as well that at this time the Labour party was scoring own goals over Militant and infighting between Bennites and those on the centre of the party which also played in Thatcher's favour. Historic opinion poll data can be downloaded here: www.markpack.org.uk/opinion-polls/

Quote ="Big Graeme"Complete horse, at any other time we would have left a tiny spec on the map to its fate and negotiated a hand over, being well behind in the polls and looking like being ousted at the impending election was very much on her mind.'" More myths: the earliest poll taken (7 April 1982) after the Falklands invasion (2 April) had the polls at: CON 31.5%, LAB 29.0%, SDP/LIB 37.0%. So given that the Tories had a small lead over Labour at the time and were only behind the Alliance in the polls, why take such a political risk in fighting a war you have a high chance of losing? It wasn't in early 1982 that Thatcher was well behind in the polls, it was in 1980. In December 1980 it was CON 32.0%, LAB 56.0%, LIB 11.0%. The big turning point in the polls, which shredded Labour, was the formation of the Alliance in early 1981. Labour dropped to the mid 30s after that. During the next term, Thatcher was in more trouble in the polls in 1986 than she was in 1982, she was ten points down on Kinnock's Labour a year away from the 1987 election but still won 100 seat majority, there was no 'Falklands factor' then. Remember as well that at this time the Labour party was scoring own goals over Militant and infighting between Bennites and those on the centre of the party which also played in Thatcher's favour. Historic opinion poll data can be downloaded here: www.markpack.org.uk/opinion-polls/

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

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