Loony left - WikiHQ

thumb|[[Neil Kinnock, the Labour Party leader when the term became widely used at the 1987 general election]]

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.|sign=|source=

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.

Peter Jenkins

Peter Jenkins, a columnist for The Guardian and The Independent, recorded policies which were dubbed "loony left" by the media. For instance, Haringey council allowed only Nicaraguan coffee to be sold and introduced courses on homosexuality into its nursery and primary schools.