The loony left is a pejorative term used to describe those considered to be politically hard left. First recorded as used in 1977, the term was widely used in the United Kingdom in the campaign for the 1987 general election and subsequently both by the Conservative Party and by British newspapers that supported the party, as well as by more moderate factions within the Labour movement to refer to the activities of more militantly left-wing politicians that they believed moderate voters would perceive as extreme or unreasonable. The label was directed at the policies and actions of some Labour-led inner-city councils and some Labour Party politicians. Although the labels hard left and soft left reflected a genuine political division within the Labour Party, loony left was by far the more often used label than either. While academics have depicted the era as of the "new urban left" (such as the rate-capping rebellion) as a throwback to earlier municipal militancy (e.g. Poplarism), wider media coverage tended to focus on the personalities of city leaders such as the Greater London Council's Ken Livingstone and Liverpool's Derek Hatton.
Origin and themes of the term The term "loony left" as used to describe certain aspects of Labour politics was created by the British popular press a few years before the 1987 general election. Throughout the run-up to the election, it became a staple feature of press coverage of the election, with many stories running detailing the "antics" of Labour politicians and Labour-controlled local government authorities. Jolyon Jenkins recorded in 1987 that 1986 was the climax of the Loony Left campaign:
[That it was the year] when the Sun announced that it was going to award a prize — a symbolic two-finger statuette — to the "looniest" council of them all [...] when the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday sent teams of reporters chasing round London boroughs in search of good (if not true) stories; when even The Times used the term without apparent irony. Most importantly, it was the year when Environment Secretary Nicholas Ridley and Conservative Party Chairman Norman Tebbit decided this could be harnessed as a vote winner for the Conservative Party. The ridicule of the political left by some British newspapers has a far longer history. Petley observes that the British press had long since "perfected a way of representing the ideas and personalities associated with socialism as so deranged and psychotic that they represented a danger to society", thus rendering them fair game for editorial vilification. Following his party's defeat in the 1983 general election, one newspaper had characterised Michael Foot's habit of swinging his walking stick around as he went for his morning walk as being "like an escaped loony". The election of Ken Livingstone to the leadership of the Greater London Council in 1981 had him regularly described in newspapers as "barmy" or "loony", with the GLC's policies labelled "crazy". These labels were increasingly also applied to local councils within London: The 13 March 1983 Sunday People labelled Islington local council the "Bananas republic"; and the 13 February 1983 Mail on Sunday labelled it "The mad mad mad mad world of Islington". In some ways, the "Loony Left" campaign was a generalisation of the Conservative campaign of demonising Livingstone and the GLC. As recorded by Jenkins, the climax of the campaign was in 1986 and pivotal moments in its history were the London local council elections held in May 1986 and the 1987 Greenwich by-election, as well as of course the campaign for the 1987 general election. The general theme that the "loony left" label suggested was twofold, and Labour Party local government authorities were perceived to be:
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