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: Irrationally obsessed with minority and fringe issues. Paranoid about racial and sexual "problems" that were wholly imaginary on their parts, without actual substance. "Loony left" was also used to describe specific individuals. Neil Kinnock, who had been subject to press vituperation since his election as party leader, was associated with the "loony left" when, in March 1987, he endorsed a rise of 60% in local council rates in Ealing, where he was a rate-payer. The Sun gave this the headline "Kinnock admits — I back loonies" and other newspapers put this forward as an example of support for extremism by the Labour Party leadership. A later story in the Daily Express about how Ken Livingstone purportedly had a left-wing takeover of the party arranged was denied by the Labour leadership; this was subsequently reported as "Neil Denies Truth About Left Plot". Likewise, Deirdrie Wood, Labour candidate in the 1987 Greenwich by-election, came to be known in the press as "Dreadful Deirdrie". Wood had been selected by her local constituency party against opposition from the Labour leadership. Privately, she had promised Kinnock, "I won't drop you in it", to which he had replied, "It's not you, it's those bastards out there", referring to the press. Labour presented her as "a hard-working local woman with sensible policies", but the press portrayed her as a radical extremist by association, as an Irish Republican Army sympathiser living with a militant shop steward who was not the father of her children. She was also depicted personally as a "hard left feminist, anti-racist and gay-rights supporter" (as one News of the World report put it) who wanted to twin London schools with Palestine Liberation Organization camps. Local authorities were the