Taking the Cold War seriously? You think that Foot/Kinnock would have thought it a joke, considering how closely tied we were/still are to the US?
Defending the UK I agree with UP TO A POINT. Yes, the Falklands was generally justified (ish) but some of the actions (can you say "General Belgrano"? I knew you could) were NOT justified.
She didn't CURB the unions, she DESTROYED them. Breaking strikes and crushing people underfoot. Yeah, real good leader.
As for the UK Economy.....were you living in a CAVE or something? She destroyed the economy! She took everything, absolved the government of responsibility for much of it, created seriously damaging boom and bust laissez-faire capitalism and utterly destroyed British industry.
Wow. You think she was good WHY again?
Well, a couple of things snipped from Wiki about Foot that I think show a shallowness of understanding (though coming from another side of the aisle I understand that you may view some of these differently):
1950s, 60s:
Foot was however a critic of the west's handling of the Korean war, an opponent of West German rearmament in the early 1950s and a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
As leader of the Labour Party:
The 1983 Labour manifesto, strongly socialist in tone, advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation and a return to a more interventionist industrial policy. The manifesto also pledged that a Labour government would abolish the House of Lords and leave the EEC. Among the Labour MPs newly-elected in 1983 in support of this manifesto were Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Foot's Labour Party lost to the Conservatives in a landslide. Foot resigned and was succeeded by Neil Kinnock as leader. Gerald Kaufman, once Harold Wilson's press officer and during the 1980s a key player on the Labour right, described the 1983 Labour manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history".
To respond to your other points:
The sinking of the Belgrano… I guess I would judge this in three ways:
1) Was it strategically justified? - In my ever humble opinion, yes. The Belgrano posed a notable threat to the task force.
2) Was it morally justified? - I think that if the war is justified, and the act is strategically justified (as per point '1' above), then a case for it being morally justified can be made.
3) Was it legally justified? - Maybe not, being just outside the exclusion zone. However when we are at war and an act is strategically and morally justifiable then it would be a hell of a thing to risk the RN Task Force over a poorly thought out technicality.
Next, regarding destroying the unions instead of curbing them. As anyone whose ever commuted on London Underground will tell you, there are still powerful unions out there. She did destroy their conceit that they could bring down a democratically elected government.
Lastly; you claim that Thatcher created the boom-bust economy!?! I suggest you look at the economic history of post war Britain. It is a series of booms and busts. In fact the thatcherite reforms enabled us to coast along successfully for a while even after New Labour came to power and began squandering their inheritance.
Snippet from Wiki:
"For several decades after World War II, the British economy recorded chronic weak growth and was sometimes referred to as the "sick man of Europe"."
Nobodies called us that since Thatcher's reforms.
