On 10 January 1979, during a wave of strikes, Prime Minister James Callaghan returned from a summit in Guadeloupe. At a press conference at Heathrow Airport, he was jocular and mentioned a swim in the Caribbean. A reporter asked about “the mounting chaos in the country.” Callaghan replied: “I don’t think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.”
The next day, The Sun ran the headline “Crisis? What crisis?” Callaghan never used those exact words. His speechwriter Roger Carroll later agreed they were an effective paraphrase: “He asked for it, I’m afraid, and he got it.”
Within four months, his government had fallen to a vote of no confidence and lost the general election.