Neil Kinnock

oboogie · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 3:01 am

I stumbled across this prediction from 28 years ago and just wanted to ask - are we there yet?

Quote:

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as Prime Minister, I warn you.

I warn you that you will have pain - when healing and relief depend on payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance - when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty - when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a Government that won't pay, in an economy that can't pay.

I warn you that you will be cold - when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work - when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet - when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort - with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound - when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.

I warn you that you will borrow less - when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins, she will be more a Leader than a Prime Minister. That power produces arrogance and when it is toughened by Tebbitry and flattered and fawned upon by spineless sycophants, the boot-licking tabloid Knights of Fleet Street and placement in the Quangos, the arrogance corrupts absolutely.

If Margaret Thatcher wins -

I warn you not to be ordinary.
I warn you not to be young.
I warn you not to fall ill.
I warn you not to get old.

Neil Kinnock 1983

Gourami · **Joined:** Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:51 pm **Posts:** 2005

Fairly prescient, although I don't know the exact context. All the same...

And an excellent new word! Tebbitry. It shall be my new exclamatory term to be wheeled out on special occassions which suit. I will point an enormous accusatory finger (Kenny Everett stylee) at the unfolding bigotry and bellow, "Tebbitry!!!" in a voice which evokes the sound of Brian Blessed with piles, being dryly sodomized by Ian Paisley on viagra.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 4:57 am

I think the sodomising should be the other way round.

Gourami · **Joined:** Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:51 pm **Posts:** 2005

They can swap ends at half time.

*insert 'Kevin Keegan is going to pull you off at half time' joke here*

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:04 am

Abernathy · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:47 am

Thanks for reminding us of that, Oboogie. Say what you like about Kinnock (and Murdoch's organs bloody well did), by fuck he was passionate on a par with Bevan when it came to hating the Tories.

oboogie · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:50 am

Gourami wrote:

And an excellent new word! Tebbitry. It shall be my new exclamatory term to be wheeled out on special occassions which suit. I will point an enormous accusatory finger (Kenny Everett stylee) at the unfolding bigotry and bellow, "Tebbitry!!!" in a voice which evokes the sound of Brian Blessed with piles, being dryly sodomized by Ian Paisley on viagra.

I prefer to think of it being bellowed by this fella.

And those found guilty of Tebbitry should be dealt with like this:

oboogie · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 8:48 am

Abernathy wrote:

Thanks for reminding us of that, Oboogie. Say what you like about Kinnock (and Murdoch's organs bloody well did), by fuck he was passionate on a par with Bevan when it came to hating the Tories.

Kinnock in full flight was a magnificent orator. Today, unfairly, he is probably best remembered for the "Well orrwight!!" nonsense at Sheffield, which is alleged to have cost us the '92 election (it didn't). I remember him as a breath of fresh air, someone young and in touch. I was 19 when he became Labour leader and the NME interviewed him and called him the first Rock and Roll party leader (he was a teenage teddy-boy and a member of the Gene Vincent fan club, facts like that seemed really important at the time).
Looking down his list, it all applies today, even more so now than then. It'd be lovely to think that there was someone in the shadow cabinet today capable of making such a speech but I can't see it somehow.

Neil Kinnock

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