Exemplification
As Jenkins noted, the truth of the stories mattered less than their resonance with voter fears. Three of the most famously recorded instances of "Loony Left" activities, "Baa Baa White Sheep", renaming manhole covers, and "black bin-liner bags" were myths, outright fabrications by the press. Others stories, such as reports that London councils had insisted that homosexuals be placed at the heads of the waiting lists for council housing and that London councils had spent £0.5millions on "24 super-loos for gypsies" were found to be highly misleading upon investigation by the Media Research Group of Goldsmiths' College, University of London.
The report of the MRG investigation estimated that some 3,000 news stories about the "Loony Left" ran between 1981 and 1987 in the British tabloid press alone. It determined that a large proportion of these stories were either partially or wholly fabricated, and that their targets, against whom they aimed to inflame public opinion, were a small number of London local councils that were under Labour Party control.
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