Why wasn’t it reported … 90 per cent of Falklands land was owned by absentee landlords in the UK, and that Falkland Islanders were actually working tenants? How ‘paramount’ were their interests?

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If we cast our minds back to 1982, does tooling up and travelling most of the way across the globe at huge expense to rescue a forgotten outpost still feel like a noble undertaking? Or is it all feeling rather hollow? Have the long-liberated Falkland Islanders and their sons and daughters suddenly forgotten us? We’ll explore this question later.

Also, in 1982 – strategic value aside – were the Falkland Islanders’ interests ‘paramount’, as Thatcher kept claiming, or were somebody else’s desires secretly to the forefront?

Few people are aware, but a tiny, vanishing minority of Falkland Islanders actually owned the land they lived and worked on. Back then, practically 90% of Falklands land, including the vast sheep farms, belonged to the UK-based Coalite Group PLC (40%) and absentee landlords (50%), most of them resident in the UK.

I’d imagine Coalite Chairman Ted Needham and many of these landowners would have been dyed-in-the-wool Thatcher supporters, residing in Tory heartlands, and following the Argentine invasion, were super-keen on lobbying for a task force to be raised urgently – whatever the potential pitfalls – in an attempt to recover their stolen property portfolios.

Whoever did the pre-war cost / benefit analysis, before concluding it was worth our while venturing most of the way across the planet to recover a small number of anonymous UK landlords’ frozen, windswept properties – along with their tenants – must have been either living in cloud cuckoo land, or acting fully in keeping with a concealed, party political agenda.

I would suggest the former AND the latter…

The UK BBC, popular media and newspapers curiously failed to cover these largely hidden interests during the heat of the conflict in 1982 – and still haven’t achieved any openness or transparency on this 40 years later.

How could that happen?

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“There’s no shame in admitting you were bamboozled – all of us are from the earliest age. The dignity comes from knowing better, and resolving to never allow yourself to be fooled in the same way again” –

Mark Devlin

https://paulcardin.substack.com

Here’s the links where you can purchase the eBook and printed versions of “Return to Bomb Alley 1982 – The Falklands Deception”:

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912680-81-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-912680-82-5

Paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1912680815

Ebook on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09WJD7PVZ

Universal ebook link: https://books2read.com/u/4ElOXl

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Part TWO: https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/03/29/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-two/

Part THREE: https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/03/30/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-three/

Part FOUR: https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/01/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-four/

Part FIVE: https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/04/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-five/

Part SIX:

https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/05/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-six/

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Part SEVEN:

The Serialisation of “Return to Bomb Alley – The Falklands Deception” – Part Seven

Part EIGHT: https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/12/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-eight/

Part NINE:

https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/19/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-part-nine/

Part TEN: https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/23/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-ten/

https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/24/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-eleven/

https://wirralinittogether.blog/2022/04/25/the-serialisation-of-return-to-bomb-alley-the-falklands-deception-part-twelve/