More than two out of three people in Britain, according to the opinion polls, disapproved of the American raid on Libya and of Margaret Thatcher’s decision to allow the use of British airfields. Letters to the press reflected the same view, often in the most violent terms.
Editorial opinion was more evenly, sometimes surprisingly, divided. The Times, for example, defended America’s action: so did the Daily Mirror: the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times opposed it. The BBC, ostensibly impartial, tended to be in effect anti-American. Almost unbelievably, the National Union of Journalists (with many branches dissenting) voted to send condolences to Colonel Qaddafi.
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