IN 1984, the Tory government was keen to maintain and enhance trade links with Libya, despite the threat of incurring the wrath of the Americans.
In a memo dated January 23, Richard Luce, the Foreign Office minister, told trade minister Paul Channon about how Libya was now demanding doing trade on credit. He wrote: "I share your reluctance to see a cash market turning to credit but clearly if our trade competitors make such a move, we must be able to match them if we are to build on our already substantial exports to Libya."
Mr Luce admitted the US Government's view of Colonel Gaddafi was not fully shared by the UK. America had introduced trade sanctions on Tripoli following the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident when Libyan jets opened fire on US ones during a naval exercise. He told his colleague: "Given their view of Gaddafi, which we do not fully share, they are bound to be critical. As you know we already have plans afoot to tackle with the Americans some of the problems we are having with them over trade with Libya.
"I do not consider that we should put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage by delaying action on this particular issue, pending agreement with the Americans on the broader question."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article