Diana Gould–Margaret Thatcher exchange
1983 BBC television spat over Falklands war / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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An exchange on 24 May 1983 between Diana Gould, an English schoolteacher and former Women's Royal Naval Service meteorological officer, and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was voted in 1999 as one of Britain's most memorable television spots.[1] Appearing as a member of the public on BBC Nationwide's On the Spot live election special, Gould confronted Thatcher over the sinking of the Belgrano, an Argentine warship, during the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina.[2][3]
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Margaret Thatcher on Nationwide questioned over the Belgrano on YouTube |
ARA General Belgrano, a cruiser, sank with the loss of 323 lives on 2 May 1982, after Thatcher gave the order to attack it when it sailed near a 200-mile exclusion zone the British had declared around the Falkland Islands. It was hit by two Mark 8 torpedoes launched by HMS Conqueror, a nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine. The sinking was controversial, in part because of a dispute as to whether the ship had been heading toward or away from the exclusion zone when it was hit. Gould believed it had been sailing away from the exclusion zone. It was made public in 2011 that General Belgrano had in fact been ordered to sail toward it.[4][5]
The exchange between Thatcher and Gould became iconic, remembered because of Gould's persistence in asking why Thatcher had given the order, which seemed to rattle the prime minister.[6] It was described as "the day Margaret Thatcher met her match".[7] Thatcher was reportedly angry that the BBC had allowed the question to be asked.[8] Her husband, Denis Thatcher, told the producer that the BBC was run by "a nest of long-haired Trots and wooftahs".[9][10] Gould wrote a book about her experience, On the Spot: The Sinking of the Belgrano (1984).