by Peter Freeman

Created on: February 26, 2009

I remember the Thatcher years and I didn't like them very much. She got elected in 1979 after the devolution referendum fiasco.

The Labor Party led by Jim Callaghan was a minority government that had to rely on the 12 liberal MPs and the 4 Scot Nationalists and the 2 Welsh Nationalists in Parliament in order to get anything done. This support was based on his commitment to a Scottish and Welsh referendum on Parliaments for those two countries. It was a half hearted support at best and many Labor MPs actively campaigned against it. Predictably it failed. The Lib's and Nat's withdrew their support and Jim had to call a general election. Capitalizing on failed policies the Conservatives won and the Thatcher era began.

It didn't begin well. The Conservatives had developed a notion that income tax should be reduced and sales tax raised. This did mean a pay raise for everyone at first. It also meant much higher prices on goods. You can claim expenses against income tax but you can't claim against sales tax. The pay raise was more than wiped out by the price rise on goods and services. Soon firms were going bankrupt and unemployment doubled. Maggie had become the most unpopular Prime Minister since Chamberlain. The Labor party was totally disorganized. They showed themselves to be a party full of old socialists who dreamed about the collapse of capitalism but they didn't have solutions to the problems that occur when that collapse actually happened.

An election has to be called every 5 years but can be called any time in between at the Prime Ministers discretion. By 1982 it looked like she was going to lose any election by a large margin. That is when the Falklands hit the fan.

The President of Argentina was General Galtieri. A self appointed general who had never fought in a shooting war. He was facing trouble, there was a movement to have him ousted from power. The Falklands, or Malvinas to the Argentineans had long been an emotional issue. Galtieri was led to believe that he could take back the islands. This was helped by the British decision to withdraw HMS Enterprise, Britain's only naval presence, from the South Atlantic.

On April 2nd 1982 Argentina invaded and Galtieri basked in a new wave of popularity. Then, to Galtieri's surprise, the Brit's launched their task force and sailed of ready to fight. The outcome was predictable. A professional military with a thousand years of military history against an army made up mainly of conscriptees. By mid June the war was

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