Perhaps everything will be paid for from Falklands oil, which, it is reported, could be worth £100bn in corporation taxes and royalties, with half going to Britain, half to the islanders.
In the late 1970s, Jim Callaghan’s Labour government lived in terror of losing the next election because, ministers thought, the Tories would get all the benefits from the newly discovered North Sea oil and stay in power for years. So it came to pass.
One hopes Falklands oil doesn’t work out the same way. It will take at least five years to come onstream, and so Labour’s best plan is probably to lose this year’s election, but to make bloody sure it wins the one after that.
This item appears in this week’s issue of the New Statesman.
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