1980s Labour unhobbled by "Loony Left" image

Can it be arranged so that, in the period leading up to the 1987 election, the UK Labour Party doesn't have to contend with the stigma of association with the supposed loony-left then dominating(among other things) local councils?

Of course, I recognize that how one answers this question might depend on whether you think there really was a contingent of left-wing lunatics running things on the councils, or if the whole controversy was just a mirage conjured-up by Tory-leaning tabloids. Personally, I lean toward the latter view, though having spent quite a bit of time among left-wingers, I do recognize that some of them can be their own worst enemies.

The Loony Left For Beginners
 
Of course, I recognize that how one answers this question might depend on whether you think there really was a contingent of left-wing lunatics running things on the councils
Well, Red Ken was running things in the most visible London Council, and he was just way too friendly with way too many actual Trotskyites. Having him absent from the London scene would help things greatly from an optics standpoint, one less thing for the Sun and Daily Mail to write about
 
Yes, I remember Livingstone of Islington well, and how he became a lightning-rod for all the anti-left and anti-identity politics animosity of the era.

Funny thing, though, his fearsome reputation as a baby-eating trot didn't prevent his getting elected mayor in 2000, by a presumably wider pool of voters than Islington. I even remember Mayor Ken him verbally bashing some anti-globalization protestors who were converging upon London, whereas twenty years earlier they would have been seen as his kinda people.
 
Can it be arranged so that, in the period leading up to the 1987 election, the UK Labour Party doesn't have to contend with the stigma of association with the supposed loony-left then dominating(among other things) local councils? ...

No supposed about it, Cambridge was declared a nuclear free zone. They even tried to insisted that the electric company would not supply nuclear generated electricity to the city!
 
Going back a few years, preventing the SDP breakaway in 1981 may help as those who defected (councillors and activists) would have acted as a counterweight to the “loony left” element in the Labour Party.

Crunch point may be the Labour Party adopted a policy to withdraw from the EEC, and unilateral nuclear disarmament, at their conference in Jan 1981. Stop that and the SDP may never have formed (oversimplification, I know, and a lot of chicken and egg here).
 

Taimur500

Banned
Doesn't stop it being any less stupid.:biggrin:
Hindsight is 20/20.
Cold war+chernobyl anxiety is a very real thing, no?
Doesn't help that nuclear energy is quite arcane for most of the population and most people's first exposure to the concept back then was the possibly unavoidable thermonuclear war that will send us back to the stone age.

Not to mention wind is way cooler than nuclear, they have lots of big fans.
 
A more moderate party would help, but a big part of it was also the general anti-Labour attitudes that were prevalent in the tabloids. So getting rid of that would do a lot to stop the idea of 'the loony left' from becoming ingrained in the public consciousness.

Maybe Murdoch doesnt buy the Sun, or better yet, he does but still remains supportive of Labour, as he was during his university days. Combine that with leaders who leans right rather than left, then I think the damage from this could be kept to a minimum, though probably not eradicated entirely.
 
Well, Red Ken was running things in the most visible London Council, and he was just way too friendly with way too many actual Trotskyites. Having him absent from the London scene would help things greatly from an optics standpoint, one less thing for the Sun and Daily Mail to write about

Degsy Hatton was busy bankrupting Liverpool council and sending fleets of taxis round with redundancy notices for council workers too. Hardly likely to inspire much confidence in Labour's governing potential.
 
Can it be arranged so that, in the period leading up to the 1987 election, the UK Labour Party doesn't have to contend with the stigma of association with the supposed loony-left then dominating (among other things) local councils?

Cracking down harder and faster on Militant would have been a start. Militant was rich fodder for The Sun back then. There was the "Harthill Six", a group of council gardeners who refused to go on strike because they were worried their plants would suffer; in response Hatton had them sacked and had their gardens demolished. He tended to hire Militant supporters over more-qualified candidates for council posts and eventually made the entire staff redundant as part of a game of brinksmanship with the government.

The problem is that Labour's unwillingness to do anything cemented the perception that Labour was full of Marxists, Trots, and "tankies" all arguing with each other while Britain's industrial base collapsed and unemployment soared. People didn't want Marxism, they wanted jobs and a sound economy. The Loony Left stereotype didn't just amuse right-wingers, it irritated socialists as well because there was again a perception that Labour's rank and file was full of ideologically-driven nerds who were unable to organise anything beyond a bunch of meaningless protests.
 
Ken Livingstone decides not to keep granny eating newts

Thanks for that. The thing about "spending your money on black lesbian theatre groups" is scarcely an exaggeration of the tabloid irrelevancies.

Canada has an interesting tradtion of importing both a) British socialists and b) British hack journalists to denounce the socialists, so the main reason I know about all this "loony left" stuff is because the hacks did such a thorough job of bringing it to the attention of Canadian readers. And I distinctly recall Barbara Amiel(current wife of Conrad Black) mentioning that some council somewhere had provided funding to buy "gym mats for lesbians".
 
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