Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

oldironside

(1,248 posts)
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 03:28 AM Apr 2013

Cuba without the sunshine?

I make no apologies for stealing this from the Mail. As a fan of alternative history I can safely say that if anyone tried to post this timeline on the Alternate History Discussion Board it would be laughed away to the Alien Space Bats forum. A totally lunatic Thatcherite wankfest that gave me the first LOL moment of the day.

Tony Benn as PM and Arthur Scargill as a Viscount are funny enough, but their alternate reading of the Falklands would embarrass a GCSE history student. Leaving aside the fact that the Labour leadership supported military action to retake the Falklands, it's hilarious how the Tories ignore the fact that the invasion of 1982 was a direct result of their policy failures - the 1981 Defence Review and the withdrawal of HMS Endurance. They were even trying to flog an aircraft carrier to the Argentinians. They really don't like to be reminded that the previous Labour government sent a nuclear submarine and a couple of destroyers in 1977 as a response to Argentine similar sabre rattling and headed off any shooting conflict.

Oh, and the picture editor of the super patriotic Mail managed to choose a picture of the WW2 vintage HMS Sheffield to illustrate their fantasy, rather than the Type 42 that was actually lost. That's a fine tribute to the sailors who didn't come back.

Dawn is breaking in Puerto Argentino, the town its former inhabitants once knew as Port Stanley. At the tiny airport, a gigantic mural commemorates the soldiers from the mainland who lost their lives in the battle for the Malvinas, or the Falklands, as they used to be called.

Next to the old Anglican cathedral (now Catholic), a gigantic blue and white flag flutters. In the square nearby, a statue of General Leopoldo Galtieri gazes impassively out to sea.

Today, in 2013, the world remembers General Galtieri as one of the defining personalities of the Eighties, a strong leader who, by recapturing the Malvinas, set his stamp on the age.

For Britain, however, it was a dreadful decade — perhaps the worst in our modern history, and one that set the tone for years to come.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2308332/Cuba-sunshine.html

5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Cuba without the sunshine? (Original Post) oldironside Apr 2013 OP
Ugh. Typical Daily Mail. And the idea of Blair being Benn's handpicked successor is hilarious! LeftishBrit Apr 2013 #1
Alternative histories never make much sense to me dipsydoodle Apr 2013 #2
The awful thing is the author is a historian muriel_volestrangler Apr 2013 #3
There are historians... oldironside Apr 2013 #4
What a lovely piece of fiction. mwooldri Apr 2013 #5

LeftishBrit

(41,192 posts)
1. Ugh. Typical Daily Mail. And the idea of Blair being Benn's handpicked successor is hilarious!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 04:15 AM
Apr 2013

My fantasies in the opposite direction - that the UK without Thatcherism might have ended up as something like Norway or Finland without the snow - are doubtless also over-the-top; but certainly we'd have done much better!

dipsydoodle

(42,239 posts)
2. Alternative histories never make much sense to me
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 05:31 AM
Apr 2013

regardless of who wrote them. Cuba without the sunshine ? Nowhere is really like Cuba - wonderful place.

My mind is a blur from those days anyway - too much happened to me : some good and some bad. I just pick up on odd things now. I'd almost forgotten our higher rates of tax to which I was subject then. Some halfwit adjusted mine back to standard rate over the last 3 months of 1986/87 tax year leaving me an unexpected tax bill of £5000 or so a few months later. Its a difficult subject to search - anyone recall when those higher marginal rates ended and why they never returned ? Not that they had any meaning to me as post 1991 when I occasionally spent odd months living on beans on toast. Everything finally corrected 1997 - not sure if that was due to Blair or not.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,159 posts)
3. The awful thing is the author is a historian
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 05:59 AM
Apr 2013

not just a crazed Mail staff hack. Though I notice his Wikipedia page points to accusations that at least one of his books consists of reprinting what contemporary news magazines said without making that clear: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576136184280902022.html

And, of course, Thatcher regarded Blair as her greatest achievement:

Late in 2002 Lady Thatcher came to Hampshire to speak at a dinner for me. Taking her round at the reception one of the guests asked her what was her greatest achievement. She replied, "Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds."

Lhttp://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/04/making-history.html

oldironside

(1,248 posts)
4. There are historians...
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:51 AM
Apr 2013

... and then there are hacks with an axe to grind who have just enough of an education to twist some important facts and ignore all the others. Didn't the Sun used to have a columnist back in the 80s who was a lecturer in modern history somewhere? I can't have dreamt that.

I suppose this guy must have got the gig because David Irving didn't pick up the phone fast enough and even Frederick Forsythe considers writing for the Mail beneath him.

mwooldri

(10,291 posts)
5. What a lovely piece of fiction.
Wed Apr 17, 2013, 04:05 PM
Apr 2013

Though I do say that Robert Harris's "Fatherland" was better, as was the movie "It Happened Here".

Alternative histories are just that: Fiction. Doctor Who is more realistic than this.

Latest Discussions»Region Forums»United Kingdom»Cuba without the sunshine...