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The context of the coining of jingoism was British foreign policy of the late 1870s. The prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, favored sending gunboats to halt the advance of the Russian fleet out of their own waters into the Mediterranean. This gave rise to a music-hall song, written in 1878 by G. W. Hunt, the refrain of which went: "We don't want to fight, yet by Jingo! if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, and got the money too." Opponents of the policy picked up on the word jingo and used it as an icon of blind patriotism.
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