Great Britain: Benefit of the Doubt

The British Labor Party's official song is more auld hat than Auld Lang Syne. At the party's annual conference in Brighton last week, the leaders as usual linked hands on the platform and (to the tune known in the U.S. as Maryland, My Maryland) chanted the quaint lyrics:

The People's Flag is deepest red.

It shrouded oft our martyred dead . . .

There were no Socialist martyrs at Brighton, but Prime Minister Harold Wilson, just back from Washington, had a hard time keeping that old Red Flag flying and showing just the right hue. Wilson's major troubles...