The Anguilla Caper

The British government has, I think, been genuinely surprised and pained by the universal derision which the invasion of Anguilla provoked; Harold Wilson had expected rather to be congratulated on taking such firm but humane action. This government, living as it does in an ivory tower of self-esteem, really is astonishingly incapable of foreseeing the consequences of its own actions.

In Britain itself derision is tinged with anger because people felt that their country has been made a laughingstock. One acid-tongued Conservative Member of Parliament congratulated Mr. Wilson on having at last taken on somebody his own size. And the London Evening Standard had a nice cartoon of Mr. Wilson as a heavily armed paratrooper, proclaiming “Anguilla today, tomorrow the world.”

AL

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Anthony Lejeune

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The British government has, I think, been genuinely surprised and pained by the universal derision which the invasion of Anguilla provoked; Harold Wilson had expected rather to be congratulated on taking such firm but humane action. This government, living as it does in an ivory tower of self-esteem, really is astonishingly incapable of foreseeing the consequences of its own actions.

In Britain itself derision is tinged with anger because people felt that their country has been made a laughingstock. One acid-tongued Conservative Member of Parliament congratulated Mr. Wilson on having at last taken on somebody his own size. And the London Evening Standard had a nice cartoon of Mr. Wilson as a heavily armed paratrooper, proclaiming “Anguilla today, tomorrow the world.”