The claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction capible of reaching Britain's Overseas Territories on Cyprus was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Image, fair use
More than thirty years ago, sections of the national press set out to vilify prominent members of the Labour left and to attack the anti-racist and anti-sexist positions with which they were associated. The Mail, Express, Sun and News of the World ran story after story criticising the ‘hard left’ positions of the Greater London Council and propagated a series of myths – for example that one Labour Council had abolished ‘black bin bags’ and that another had banned the singing of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ – that made up for in political impact what they lacked in veracity. These tabloid assaults paved the way for the scrapping of the GLC and for the passage of malicious, anti-gay legislation like Section 28 that criminalised the promotion of homosexuality in the curriculum.
I’m reminded of these sorry times by the publication of the second edition of Culture Wars, a powerful analysis of what the authors describe as a ‘sustained press campaign against the “loony left” in the 1980s’. This tabloid demonisation was designed to render a left-wing Labour Party ‘electorally toxic’ and to delegitimise progressive ideas on everything from the economy to sexuality and from language to foreign policy.
