Falklands: What a difference 30 years can make
February 02, 2012
Posted by:Philippa Tuckman
In 1982 it was days before Whitehall even knew there had been an invasion. There had been no realistic possibility of preventing Argentinean troops from landing, because the government of Margaret Thatcher (and we forget this now, and think of her very much as a war prime minister) had recently cut the Naval force guarding the Islands.
We all know the result. The Task Force set out as soon as it could be assembled, and the Falklands were recaptured at the price of 258 British lives and many injuries, most if not all of which could have been saved if the Islands had been protected in the first place.
Since then, oil has been discovered in British waters, and in any event no one wants to risk another war. Many of our clients in military compensation cases have at some point in their careers done tours to the Islands (which they all love, incidentally, even though it gets a bit chilly), so we know the bases there are kept manned. The Army bases are backed by the Navy, and HMS Dauntless is being sent down to replace HMS. We can be confident, even though there are new tensions with Argentina, that war is unlikely to be the result.