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Related: About this forumYes yes Falklands was a Tory plot
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3215676/Falklands-war-Tory-plot-jobless-men-died-Thatcher-says-Jeremy-Corbyn-Labour-leadership-hopeful-refused-offer-loyal-support-British-troops-fighting-liberate-islands.htmlSo was World War II under Tory Churchill. Great Britain should have near been involved in WWII. Should have negotiated with Hitler. All Tories suck.
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LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Corbyn is not even my first preference, and I consider the whole field of leadership candidates pretty dismal; but REALLY- going back to the Falklands over 30 years ago, and the Daily Mail thinking he wasn't sufficiently rah-rah-rah about it?
And
(1) The Falklands wasn't a 'Tory plot', but it was spectacularly mishandled by the Tory government, who withdrew ships from the South Atlantic, giving Galtieri the green light to invade. The war might never have happened at all if not for that.
(2) What has this to do with WW2? Corbyn was born well after the war ended, and has said nothing of the sort you're implying. And until close to when the war started, most Tories were recommending appeasement, and the Daily Mail was frankly pro-Nazi.
(3) The Daily Mail stinks.
(4) Who do you think SHOULD be the next leader of the Labour Party?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He's the sort who'd want it wiped out, then replaced by a "Social Democratic"
i.e., sectarian-Blairite)party that would no longer disagree with the Conservative on any major issue.
That, and I think Our Jen lives under the bridge, if you take my meaning.
mwooldri
(10,302 posts)I distinctly remember that he went to Germany to negotiate with Herr Hitler, came back with a piece of paper declaring about "peace in our time". He'd happily given away part of Czechoslovakia for "peace".
Not all Tories suck. Churchill was a liberal. Their vision for the future in the present time doesn't coincide with mine.
Jeneral2885
(1,354 posts)Hitler never invaded the UK--he invaded Poland first then the rest of Western Europe. The UK was never threatened. Churchill send unemployed men (the economy wasnt that great) to die for his glory.
Same with the Korean War. Atlee send unemployed men to die for nothing; North Korea did not threaten the UK. Should have negotiated "joint sovereignty".
Same with the first Gulf War--Thatcher and later Major sent men to die for nothing.
But wait, Atlee was Labour....
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But none of the wars the UK has been in since 1945 are even remotely comparable to that. World War II doesn't vindicate every use of force for the rest of human history.
And the Falklands War was a war over nothing...it was a handful of people on a small island. If Argentina had taken the place over, it would have been quite easy to repatriate all of the English(and they were all just English ex-pat)people living on the Falklands. The Argentinians weren't going to send them to a death camp.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)This is a politically progressive message board. You have the right to your opinions, but it's a bit absurd for you to be outraged that you're in a minority here.
It's like leftists being outraged that they're in a minority on the Spectator or Daily Mail comments sections.
And you know perfectly well that questioning the Falklands "war" is nothing whatsoever like not caring about Hitler. It's not as if General Galtieri was going to annex the Sudetenland.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)I'm not sure that accusing anyone of being a Tory is going to help.
Perhaps Jeneral2885 would care to enlighten us as to who they would actually want as Labour leader instead of Jeremy Corbyn? And why they think that their preferred candidate of the below 3 would be the best choice.
a) Andy Burnham
b) Yvette Cooper
c) Liz Kendall
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I wasn't accusing the Jeneral of being a Tory...I was assuming he was because of the way he threw in that "Tories suck" line, as if he was defensive regarding critical and disparaging remarks about the Conservative Party.
But you're right...Our Jen should come clean with what he actually wants to see happen here(other than having Corbyn tarred and feathered in Trafalgar Square, of course).
FunkyLeprechaun
(2,383 posts)I was the same before I moved to the UK. I'd have to say, in terms of equating the Democratic Party to their equivalent in the UK, it'd be the Tories at the moment. They're, right now, headed by a PM who is centrist. In 2010 and this year, both the Tory and Labour election platforms were indistinguishable, maybe one or two issues that showed the differences. I even took a quiz on the issues and my result was evenly split between labour and Tory.
Labour is now headed by someone who is as nutty as LaRouche.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)David Cameron may be many things, but a centrist he is not.
The Tories are firmly on the right wing, UKIP on the far right, Lib Dems are presumably moving back to being the "centre party" (they've been totally anonymous since Farron took over) the SNP have positioned themselves on the left of the spectrum and Labour are rushing headlong back to the left after years of triangulation gumph.
What we are seeing at the moment is the collapse of the cosy centrism of the Blair era.
FunkyLeprechaun
(2,383 posts)But as an American in Britain, coming up to 10 years here, I've observed that the Tories are the most aligned with the Democratic Party, even my British husband thinks the Tories are more liberal than the Democratic Party.
UKIP (far right), Tories (centre-right), no centre left, Lib-Dems (left), Labour (now very hard left).
Now, as a person who has personal ties to Northern Ireland- I cannot support Corbyn due to his favourable views of the IRA. It's like what I said in another post, Corbyn doesn't seem to care about what the locals think. There has been very hard work done in NI in order to integrate the country, and people are so sick of the secretarian hatred, even the OO marches in July are getting less popular.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)David Cameron may not be as much of a departure for the times, but his government does go further to the right than Thatcher did.
The Lib Dems have just come out of a coalition with the Tories, where they were a centre right party. They are not going to position themselves in the same place they were in the Charles Kennedy era with Corbyn moving Labour so far to the left.
And as for the idea of somebody like Bernie Sanders in a Blair cabinet, Blair is no fan of Bernie Sanders and the chances of him working with somebody like Bernie Sanders are remarkably slim.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/29/tony-blair-labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)and, while in the past, Tories tended to be simply pro-American whoever was in power, and didn't get involved with the American party system, more recently some have shown active support for one party or another. Thus we know that Boris Johnson preferred the Democrats in the last couple of elections; and that Alan Duncan supported Kerry in 2004. On the other hand, Liam Fox worked very actively for Mitt Romney, and Iain Duncan-Smith spoke strongly in his favour, and worse, had earlier collaborated with Santorum(!) in a Wall Street Journal article on 'compassionate conservativism'. My former County Council leader Keith Mitchell also supported Romney and even published a birther article on his blog (yes, I don't quite see how Obama's birthplace features in the duties of the Oxfordshire County Council leader either).
I would guess that there are probably more supporters of Republicans than of Democrats among our Tories who have views.
Overall, I would say that on average many West and North Europaean conservatives resemble Democrats; East Europaean conservatives are more like Republicans; and our Tories come somewhere in between. But Democrats vary widely too (Republicans used to as well, but are now much more forced into a RW mould). Michael Gove strikingly resembled the current Democratic Education Secretary; but that is an indictment of Arne Duncan, not something in Gove's favour.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)People like Duncan-Smith; Gove; indeed Osborne are not centrist, and are quite distinguishable from even Blairite Labourites.
Corbyn is certainly no LaRouche. The nearest American equivalent is probably Kucinich; though I'd be delighted if he turned out to be more of a Sanders.
FunkyLeprechaun
(2,383 posts)Sanders would probably find himself more comfortable in a Blair cabinet. There are vast differences between Corbyn and sanders that I'm appalled with posts saying that they're quite similar.
I'm saying this as a Sanders supporter.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)How is any of that nutty?
and how is it "centrist" to cut benefits for the jobless(during a continued recession) and to try and further restrict unions?
As to your comparison between the Democrats and the Tories, ironically you are paraphrasing an old joke from BEYOND THE FRINGE(the early 1960's satirical revue that included Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and which helped set the stage for Monty Python and the UK alternative comedy renaissance)
At one point, they were discussing U.S. politics(this was in a performance recorded in New York)and one of them said
"Well, there's the Republican Party, which is like our Conservative party, and the Democratic Party, which is like our Conservative Party"
(this, in an era when the Tories were well to the left of where they are now, of course).
FunkyLeprechaun
(2,383 posts)This is a man who excuses IRA terrorists.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,295 posts)And Martin McGuinness, an IRA commander, ended up in the Northern Irish government. Many people end up dealing with terrorists, who then end up getting elected. Menachem Begin, for instance. This is realpolitik.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)McGuinness and his archenemy Paisley ended up on very good terms. Former terrorist Begin and former warmonger Sadat made peace with each other.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)The Falkland War was 33 years ago. Except for Corbyn himself, not one of the Labour leadership candidates was even old enough to vote in 1982; neither was Cameron, Clegg, Farron or Miliband . A first-time voter in 2005, let alone any more recent election, would not have been born then (indeed, neither would some first-time voters of 2001).
Why are people's views on that war such an issue at THIS stage? If we are going to make it such an issue, then we need to pay more attention to the negligence of the Tory government of the time, that made the invasion possible.
More generally, we need to remember that the real enemy are the Tories. Not whichever is our least favoured candidate in the Labour Party. Even my own un-favourite candidate, Liz Kendall, is marginally better than the likes of Duncan-Smith; and fortunately she is unlikely to win the leadership contest.
FunkyLeprechaun
(2,383 posts)The more I read about the Falklands war, the more I agree with that it was the right decision by Thatcher. Argentina basically invaded British territory. Argentina think those islands are theirs, never mind the fact the natives of the Falklands are of British ancestry. The Falklanders want nothing to do with Argentina because the Argentines won't talk to the islanders rationally. The Falklanders had a referendum and want to remain British.
It's sad that Corbyn won't consider those views.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)if the government hadn't withdrawn ships from the South Atlantic, thereby sending a message to Galtieri that it would be OK to invade. People in the Navy had warned about it. Opponents may complain about Corbyn risking British preparedness on defence; but the Falklands invasion (happening in the first place) practically defines unpreparedness. Britain won because Galtieri was even stupider and more unprepared.
In any case, the Falklands War is not the top political issue of 2015.
