I'm pretty sure it's been going on since the Scot Ref.
It works both ways.
For every shan account supporting the Government there will be one spouting equal amounts of pish to undermine them.
Grassing people up is a British institution.
Forget Amazon paying zero corp. tax, nothing gets gaslight Daily Mail boomers more riled that a perceived benefit scrounger or a sole trader paying less tax than them.
Sickly sweet stories about the NHS or Captain Tom is the complete opposite to the US where coronavirus is politically polarising and being used by the Democratic media to try and inflict as much damage on the Republicans and Trump as possible.
Neither is helpful. This should be a bipartisan issue.