primary targets, though, in part because progressives had found their platform there in the 1980s. This was caused by two factors: a change in the composition of local authorities and the general election defeats for Labour from 1979 onwards. Partly because of structural changes to local authorities enacted in 1974, including the end of local aldermanic dignities and partly simply as a result of an influx of new people whose background had been in the radical youth movements of the 1960s, local government authorities became highly partisan political battlegrounds in the 1970s and 1980s that a canny politician would be able to use to construct a power base and as a stepping stone to a career in national-level politics. This was compounded by Labour's general election defeats, leaving the party with little ability to push its agenda at a national level in Westminster. As a result, local authorities became hotbeds of progressive and radical ideas and a conflict between local Labour local authorities and the Conservative central government on many issues ensued. As in the previous era of municipal socialism, Labour leaderships at local level saw themselves as stronger than their Westminster party colleagues and capable of pushing socialist political agendas where they could not be pushed at national level. This resulted in an era of "grand gesture politics", with local authorities taking highly visible stances on national political issues such as declaring themselves nuclear-free zones and "rainbow coalitions" between local Labour party politicians and pressure groups for causes outside of Labour's traditional working-class roots, such as anti-racism, gay rights, disabled rights and feminist groups. Unfortunately for Labour, the wide range of local-level policy initiatives that this engendered made it easy for Conservative opponents to apply the "Loony Left" blanket label that the news media had handed to them, a political card that the Conservatives played at both local and national levels. The label was a particularly effective tactic against Labour-controlled local education authorities because the suggestion of innocent children being manipulated to further cynical adult political goals was a very potent image. Persistence of the idea and counteraction by the Labour Party The label still occurs in British political discourse, even in the 21st century and has become a firmly embedded feature of British journalism. However, changes made by the Labour Party after the 1987 general election to ensure that it was no longer associated in the public mind