Charlie StrossReminder: Margaret Thatcher died 13 years ago on this date!
I propose to raise a toast to the devil on her behalf—a G&T, obviously. (And good riddance to bad rubbish.)
Large Format ProjectionistA real shame for humanity that she didn’t kick the bucket 40 years sooner.
@BenHM3 If Thatcher had died in 1973 it's anybody's guess where we'd be today. Possibly with someone even worse receding in our rear-view mirror: she wasn't the only neoliberal headbanger in her party back then.
David S@Pionir @BenHM3 Or if the Junta had waited six months. The UK was about to implement the results of the Nott Defense Review which would have turned the RN into a North Atlantic convoy escort force for NATO, without the ability to project force at intercontinental range without US support. The Falklands Task Force would have been impossible to assemble by 1983, and the Argentinian invasion would have been unopposed.
@Pionir @BenHM3 Before the Falklands war, Thatcher was going down in flames—popularity like Nixon during Watergate or Trump today, to give USan readers a perspective. The victory at Port Stanley gave her something like a 40% rebound in the polls, and opposition was split between the SDP/Liberal Alliance and Labour, so when she called a snap election she won it in khaki.
If Labour hadn't split in 1981, and the invasion hadn't happened OR the UK lost the war, Labour would have won.