Norman Tebbit, Conservative Party Chairman, was displeased by television coverage of the American attack on Libya. British public opinion had swung so decisively against the raid, he said, because of the pictures people had seen on their television sets. Not pictures of bombed-out military installations, which would have been all right, but pictures of dead and wounded civilians. Pictures, in fact, not unlike those pictures of Mr Tebbit which became emblematic of the Brighton bombing two years ago, and which doubtless did a lot to turn the public against the justice of that assault too.

LRB 22 May 1986 | PDF Download