The Spectator’s Notes | 24 March 2012

It is almost 30 years since Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. I must admit that those few strange weeks were incredible fun for us journalists. At the Daily Telegraph, where I was working as a leader writer, there was an interesting generational split. All the older men, with the notable exception of the blind sage T.E. Utley, were extremely pessimistic. People like Bill Deedes, the editor, who had fought in the second world war, thought the military task was impossible. It was a rare example of where relevant experience puts one at a disadvantage. To us young ones, it seemed obvious that Britain should recapture the islands — they were British in the eyes of their inhabitants, and they had been grabbed by force. It also seemed clear, although we did not know what we were talking about, that the task force could prevail. Its sheer, unexpected boldness would carry with it its own success. Luckily for the country, Margaret Thatcher was also ignorant of war. No one prepared for all subjects more conscientiously than she, but she was protected from doubts by having no direct personal memory of bloodshed. Her ignorance proved invincible.

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Our feelings ran so high against the Foreign Office because of the fiasco that we composed a song to the tune of the Red Flag which we sang in the King and Keys pub in Fleet Street. One verse, so far as I can remember, went, ‘Yet through the darkness yet there’s light/ The end of Carrington’s in sight./ He told us that he didn’t know:/ It’s all his fault that we’re slow./ He’s taken England for a ride,/ He isn’t really on our side./ Rhodesia sold, the PLO —/ Enough’s enough! The man must go.’