Channel 4 - When Britain Went to War

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Into Battle

Mobilisation

  The Conservative Party won the 1979 general election with the slogan ‘Labour isn’t Working’ alongside a picture of a queue of unemployed people, who at that time numbered around one million. The country had been hit by a series of strikes and the economy was doing badly.

  Increasing revenues from North Sea oil enabled the government to cut public borrowing. Yet over 1980-81 the economy fell further into slump, with high wage increases, a high exchange rate and high interest rates combining to cripple business.

  Jobs continued to be lost, mostly from the manufacturing industry; the total later to peak at more than three million in 1986.

  The racist National Front party lost support after Thatcher’s election in 1979 and was turning increasingly to violence. The country had been engulfed by riots in many inner cities, including Birmingham, Leeds, Luton, Leicester, Derby, Portsmouth, Edinburgh, Halifax, Reading and Cardiff. In London, riots exploded in many areas, but the Brixton riots were the trigger. There, nearly 1,000 people, mostly black, had been stopped by police under Operation Swamp – named after Thatcher’s controversial outburst that Britain was in danger of being ‘swamped by people of a different culture’ – igniting an already volatile tinderbox of poverty and urban decay.   The fortunes of the Thatcher government and the country were to change dramatically as a result of an event on 19 March 1982. Argentinian scrap merchants landed on the Falklands island, South Georgia, escorted by some military personnel, and hoisted an Argentine flag. Britain called for Argentina to remove the military personnel, but got no response. The intention to claim the Islands became clear a few days later when Argentinian forces invaded the main Falkland Islands.

  Argentina was also in economic trouble, far worse than Britain. In 1981 inflation shot to more than 600% and manufacturing output and wages were plummeting. Unrest was also brewing as a result of huge numbers of disappearances at the hands of the military junta that had seized control in a 1976 coup. For newly installed president General Galtieri, the invasion was the fulfilment of a national ambition to make the Islands part of Argentina. Cheering crowds celebrated the news in Buenos Aires.   The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 502 calling for Argentinian troops to withdraw. US Secretary of State Alexander Haig attempted shuttle mediation and the EEC approved trade sanctions against Argentina. None of this had any effect.

  Economic problems in the UK did not prevent it dispatching a task force on 5 April 1982 some 8,000 miles out to the war zone, establishing a staging post on the British-held Ascension Island. But due to cutbacks there was not enough equipment for such a long-distance endeavour. One civilian ship, the Canberra, received a complete refit for military service. Ironically, dockyard workers who were to be made redundant by the government before the invasion were given a reprieve from the unemployment queue to carry out the work.

  Britain rejected a peace proposal presented by the UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar in mid-May, and after an air and artillery barrage and major land battles the Argentinians surrendered late in June.

  In the 72 days of the war, the British captured about 10,000 Argentine prisoners, all were released. Some 655 Argentinians lost their lives (362 on the General Belgrano); Britain lost 255. General Galtieri was toppled and the junta replaced by civilian rule in 1983.

  Estimates of the financial cost of the war vary, but are put at approximately $2 billion – which equates to giving each Falklands islander £2 million.   Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives had been transformed by the Falklands victory into a popular party and a general election was called in 1983. Labour, under new left wing leader Michael Foot, faced internal divisions and defections to the new Social Democratic Party (SDP).

  Defence, employment and economic prosperity formed the main aims of the Conservative manifesto. Trade union reform, more privatisation, tax cuts and slowing inflation were all central commitments.

  Labour’s manifesto, New Hope for Britain, became known as 'the longest suicide note in history'. After the Falklands War, defence was high on the agenda. With its call for the removal of Cruise missiles from Britain and cancellation of the Trident nuclear programme, Labour faced an uphill struggle to win voters. As the campaign progressed, the Labour Party continually tried to fudge its non-nuclear commitments.

  The Conservatives won 397 seats, Labour 209 and the Alliance 23, a landslide majority of 144, even though the Tory share of the vote fell from 43.9% to 42.4%. Labour won just 27.6% of the vote. Both Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown entered Parliament for the first time.   The newly empowered government wasted little time in launching its new radical programme. It took on the miners in the strike of 1984-85, with coal stockpiled and bought in from abroad to avoid a repeat of the predecessor Edward Heath's capitulation in the mid-1970s.

  The National Union of Miners, led by Arthur Scargill, was wrong-footed at every turn and the strike was lost. Mass pit closures began immediately and this victory for Thatcher led to a full-blooded programme of curtailing union power.

  Privatisation began with the selling of shares in public utilities to private business interests. Local authority control of expenditure was snatched away through 'rate-capping'. The Greater London Council was abolished and in 1989 the community poll tax was introduced to rioting protesters.

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