O/T. The Government's handling of Covid

[ramAnag]

Ah, Tricky...I see you’ve changed your tune regarding my knowledge of history and ‘the sending of British troops into battle’ when confronted with the facts.

As regards the respective motivations of Thatcher and Blair...imo there is a clear parallel.

The War with Argentina over the Falklands was, imo, one of the first examples of political populism in action. At the time Thatcher was deeply unpopular. She needed something to deflect from domestic issues and, unfortunately, a significant section of the electorate welcomed the idea of sailing off to war against mighty Argentina to ‘prove’ how ‘Britain ruled the waves’. Two and a half months later the ‘War’ was over...255 British personnel were dead, along with a great many more Argentinians, many more on both sides had suffered life changing injuries...but Thatcher was popular once more.

As regards Iraq...again it was a case of political expediency, although certainly not populism, this time on the part of Blair, who was trying to cement an unlikely alliance between a UK Labour Government and Bush’s Republican leadership of the U.S.

Strangely, Thatcher thrived as a result of her actions, while Blair never recovered. In my opinion the actions of both led to entirely unnecessary losses, it’s just that, as I said, those British losses were greater in the South Atlantic than in Iraq.

P.S. GP...which bit of ‘I’m not suggesting this tells the whole story...it doesn’t...’ did you miss?