Abstract
According to Tam Dalyell, two contingent and fortuitous occurrences strongly conditioned the Labour Party’s response to the Argentine attack on the Falkland Islands. Firstly the fact that neither Michael Foot nor Denis Healey were in London on Friday 2 April. As a consequence, on that day, the acting leader of the PLP was John Silkin, Shadow Defence Secretary and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. When at 11 a.m. the Lord Privy Seal announced as imminent an Argentine attack, Silkin committed the Party to the ‘full support for the right of the people of the Falkland Islands to stay British’ and branded Galtieri and his fellows a ‘tinpot Fascist junta’. The second occurence was the interview given by Silkin himself on BBC’s World at One later that day. When asked whether the UK should have committed to supporting the Falklanders up to the point of taking up arms againts the Argentines, Silkin answered with no hesitation: ‘certainly!’
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