"When war breaks out," observed Britain's Laborite Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, "truth is the first casualty."
What prompted his observation was a charge by left-wing Industry Minister Anthony Wedgwood Benn that membership in the Common Market had already cost Britain 500,000 jobs, about half the current unemployment. This fanciful statistic (simplistically based on Britain's trade deficit) was only one of the wild "facts" that flew to and fro as Britain prepared to vote this week on whether to remain in the Common Market. Pro-European zealots hinted ominously that a no vote would benefit the Communists. Anti-Europeans countered by charging...
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