Reaction
There was a widespread feeling, even while the campaign was going on, that it was fundamentally risible. New Statesman columnist Philip French thought its "jingoism and intellectual dishonesty" was offensive and felt that the excessive press coverage defied comment "other than the gesture of laughing at" it. The magazine itself ran a one-off column, to go with its long-established "This England" column, featuring press cuttings highlighting absurd aspects of the campaign. The Communist Morning Star newspaper published a parody of the Maxwell advert which claimed to be "non-political, non-partisan and nonsensical" and proclaimed the support of nonsense poets Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. Paul McCartney thought the campaign was ridiculous and it inspired him to write a song called "I'm Backing the UK", which eventually became "Back in the U.S.S.R." on 'The White Album'. At the conclusion of the film 'Carry On... Up the Khyber', made during the summer and opening in November 1968, the raising of a Union Flag with the "I'm Backing Britain" slogan is greeted by Peter Butterworth turning to camera and saying "Of course, they're all raving mad, you know!".
Read more about this topic: I'm Backing Britain
Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)