No Government in Argentina is in principle any less likely than any other to want the Falkland Islands.
But if that country wanted them in any practically meaningful way, then there would be a Mercosur and associated threat to divest from the United Kingdom to such an extent as would cost more jobs here than there were people in the Falklands.
But if that country wanted them in any practically meaningful way, then there would be a Mercosur and associated threat to divest from the United Kingdom to such an extent as would cost more jobs here than there were people in the Falklands.
That would be very easy to do. There are no more than three thousand people in the Falklands.
Faced with the perfectly plausible loss of two, three, four or five times that number of taxpaying voters' jobs, then any Prime Minister would acquiesce immediately to a transfer of sovereignty, followed by a leaseback, as proposed by Margaret Thatcher and Nicholas Ridley.
Faced with the perfectly plausible loss of two, three, four or five times that number of taxpaying voters' jobs, then any Prime Minister would acquiesce immediately to a transfer of sovereignty, followed by a leaseback, as proposed by Margaret Thatcher and Nicholas Ridley.
Thatcher herself would have done so. But the world was not like that in those days. It is now.
The choice not to take advantage of that fact is precisely that, a choice, presumably with an eye on some future advantage.
But if Argentina wanted the Falkland Islands right now, then Argentina could have the Falkland Islands right now.
The choice not to take advantage of that fact is precisely that, a choice, presumably with an eye on some future advantage.
But if Argentina wanted the Falkland Islands right now, then Argentina could have the Falkland Islands right now.
Likewise, while a United Ireland would be a far harder sell to the interested parties, the Irish Republican movement could have the British State out of the Six Counties any time that it liked, including within the week.
All that it would take would be a bomb in London. Any British Government, none of which has ever really wanted Northern Ireland, would just walk out of the place, flatly refusing to countenance another 30-year nightmare like the last one.
All that it would take would be a bomb in London. Any British Government, none of which has ever really wanted Northern Ireland, would just walk out of the place, flatly refusing to countenance another 30-year nightmare like the last one.
In this case, however, it is obvious why the Irish Republican movement does not press its advantage. It has more power in Northern Ireland than it could ever have imagined, or than it can imagine even now in the Republic.
The entire political system is organised in order to accommodate Sinn Féin. That party is the point.
Martin McGuinness fills the position of Deputy First Minister, with the same powers and pay as the First Minister, as a lifetime appointment.
Meanwhile, men of the same generation and older are waiting for the knock at the door, or have already received it.
They are preparing to return to what was always a foreign country in all but name, there to stand trial such as, in view of their ages, would be likely to result in their imprisonment to the death.
Any who were still alive could sit in the recreation room and watch McGuinness's state funeral pass through those very same Bogside streets from 1972.
It is possible that some of them intend to say in court what they know about certain people, but if they were tried over there rather than over here, then they could expect no more coverage of that than the miners ever received when they did the same thing, and they may very well be sedated on the spot before committal under mental health legislation. It would be on the Internet, but what isn't?
Victor's justice is an ugly thing, and losing a war must be an intensely painful one. It is no wonder that the military lobby is bitter about Northern Ireland, although the Unionist community there shows very little sign of being so.
That lobby, unlike that community over the sea, is woven into certain sections of the London media.
Hence the ranting against Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell because they had the kind of ties that were also carefully cultivated by every British Government of either party, with all of them apart from that of Jim Callaghan arranging all policy towards the eventual achievement of those interlocutors' twin objectives of permanent rule and general amnesty, both of which were attained a generation ago now.
Most people in Britain have never been able to see which was supposed to be their side in Northern Ireland.
They watch Orange marches on television as they might watch the cultural practices of the Yanomami or the Balinese. They listened to the late Ian Paisley as they might have listened to an Iranian ayatollah, or to one of the American Bible Belt preachers to whom Paisley had many close connections.
No small part of the popular blame for the IRA's Mainland campaign was always placed on those elements for existing. It was not until 10 years after the Good Friday Agreement that Londoners stopped taking any and every opportunity to vote for Ken Livingstone, and they stopped doing so for reasons unconnected to Northern Ireland.
Most people from Unionist backgrounds are aware of this, and work around it. (By contrast, Nationalists from Northern Ireland habitually labour under the complete delusion that they are loved and wanted in the Republic.)
But the Falkland Islanders probably believe that Britain would still sacrifice blood, which it probably would not, or treasure in the form of paying jobs at home, which it certainly would not, in order to maintain their present constitutional situation.
And the Armed Forces, a tiny and very self-contained subculture that now recruits almost exclusively from the uttermost extremities of the class system, seem to expect the general electorate to care profoundly about their past loss of blood and treasure both in Northern Ireland and in the Falkland Islands, even to the extent of assessing suitability to be Prime Minister or to be Chancellor of the Exchequer by reference to the stands taken on those events.
That would always have been rather unlikely after all these years. In view of the several further defeats since, and it is impossible to describe them as anything else, it is, to anyone outside the bubble, laughable. It is time for the media to step out of that bubble.
The entire political system is organised in order to accommodate Sinn Féin. That party is the point.
Martin McGuinness fills the position of Deputy First Minister, with the same powers and pay as the First Minister, as a lifetime appointment.
Meanwhile, men of the same generation and older are waiting for the knock at the door, or have already received it.
They are preparing to return to what was always a foreign country in all but name, there to stand trial such as, in view of their ages, would be likely to result in their imprisonment to the death.
Any who were still alive could sit in the recreation room and watch McGuinness's state funeral pass through those very same Bogside streets from 1972.
It is possible that some of them intend to say in court what they know about certain people, but if they were tried over there rather than over here, then they could expect no more coverage of that than the miners ever received when they did the same thing, and they may very well be sedated on the spot before committal under mental health legislation. It would be on the Internet, but what isn't?
Victor's justice is an ugly thing, and losing a war must be an intensely painful one. It is no wonder that the military lobby is bitter about Northern Ireland, although the Unionist community there shows very little sign of being so.
That lobby, unlike that community over the sea, is woven into certain sections of the London media.
Hence the ranting against Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell because they had the kind of ties that were also carefully cultivated by every British Government of either party, with all of them apart from that of Jim Callaghan arranging all policy towards the eventual achievement of those interlocutors' twin objectives of permanent rule and general amnesty, both of which were attained a generation ago now.
Most people in Britain have never been able to see which was supposed to be their side in Northern Ireland.
They watch Orange marches on television as they might watch the cultural practices of the Yanomami or the Balinese. They listened to the late Ian Paisley as they might have listened to an Iranian ayatollah, or to one of the American Bible Belt preachers to whom Paisley had many close connections.
No small part of the popular blame for the IRA's Mainland campaign was always placed on those elements for existing. It was not until 10 years after the Good Friday Agreement that Londoners stopped taking any and every opportunity to vote for Ken Livingstone, and they stopped doing so for reasons unconnected to Northern Ireland.
Most people from Unionist backgrounds are aware of this, and work around it. (By contrast, Nationalists from Northern Ireland habitually labour under the complete delusion that they are loved and wanted in the Republic.)
But the Falkland Islanders probably believe that Britain would still sacrifice blood, which it probably would not, or treasure in the form of paying jobs at home, which it certainly would not, in order to maintain their present constitutional situation.
And the Armed Forces, a tiny and very self-contained subculture that now recruits almost exclusively from the uttermost extremities of the class system, seem to expect the general electorate to care profoundly about their past loss of blood and treasure both in Northern Ireland and in the Falkland Islands, even to the extent of assessing suitability to be Prime Minister or to be Chancellor of the Exchequer by reference to the stands taken on those events.
That would always have been rather unlikely after all these years. In view of the several further defeats since, and it is impossible to describe them as anything else, it is, to anyone outside the bubble, laughable. It is time for the media to step out of that bubble.
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