THE NEW IRANIAN HOSTAGES

In case you haven't seen it, Gerard Baker has a fascinating piece on the latest crisis and the parallels with the Falklands war:

The key difference, according to Tony Blair's critics in the UK, is that, whereas he wrings his hands and does nothing to halt this flagrant abuse of British rights and of the country's citizens, Margaret Thatcher, prime minister in 1982, boldly declared the outrage would not stand, assembled a massive naval task force to confront it and pulled off a magnificent military victory that restored international law and healed Britain's wounded pride.

Let me state, for the record, that I am an inveterate fan of Mrs Thatcher's and regard her as one of the giants of the 20th century for her contribution to the advancement of political and economic freedom around the. But it is important to record that this version of events that occurred 25 years ago and the sorry contrast it seems to represent with what is happening today is simply hooey.

It's definitely worth reading the whole thing.

Comments

[dearieme]

My memory is of old Footie working up a fine lather of (pseudo?) indignation and Thatcher, I guessed, feeling that she wasn't going to be out-patrioted by the collection of Soviet-arse-lickers that constituted such a large part of the Labour party. I also remember worrying that we were punting an awfully large part of our navy. Happily, the sinking of the Belgrano at least showed that the war wasn't going to be fought in a limp-wristed way. Of course, it was all in olden times - hell, a minister resigned on a point of honour. Very not New Labour.