Neil Kinnock was right

Fflaps · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:17 pm

A friend reminded me of this speech this morning, from just before the election in 1983.

Quote:

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you.
I warn you that you will have pain when healing and relief depend upon 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 on Thursday?
- 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.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:40 pm

Yes, I've had many a cause to remember Neil's speech in the context of the last two and a half years or so, and to realise just how spot-on he was.

People don't learn basic truths though do they? Just one simple one ought to be enough - that Tories in government (and I include Clegg, Alexander & Co in this) ALWAYS fuck decent people over in favour of the already well-off. Always. Always. Why can't the stupid fuckers out there who vote (and don't vote) just grasp this?

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:44 pm

Yes. That simple truth.

bluebellnutter · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:11 pm

Abernathy wrote:

Why can't the stupid fuckers out there who vote (and don't vote) just grasp this?

Because the population is stupid. They will get conned into voting for the flash candidate and sod the consequences time-after-time. There have only been two exceptions to this since the war, 1945 and 1992. "Flash" might have meant something different over the years, but the principle remains the same. Churchill, Eden, Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Blair and Cameron all follow the trend.

davidjay · **Joined:** Tue Feb 17, 2009 8:24 pm **Posts:** 3839

Abernathy wrote:

People don't learn basic truths though do they? Just one simple one ought to be enough - that Tories in government (and I include Clegg, Alexander & Co in this) ALWAYS fuck decent people over in favour of the already well-off. Always. Always. Why can't the stupid fuckers out there who vote (and don't vote) just grasp this?

Because too many of them think they're better off. "You can't be Labour you've got a job/own your own house/not a forrin." As Joe Haines said, if they offered ten quid a week and in return scrapped elections the majority would say thanks, we didn't want to vote anyway.

Kreuzberger · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:51 pm

An excellent reminder. Thanks, Fflaps!

AOB · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:23 pm

As to why people vote them back in, the press, as people here know, should never be under-estimated in terms of the influential power they wield. Some might argue they reflect public opinion, I'm of the opinion that primarily they form it.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:14 pm

Abernathy · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:23 pm

While we're at it, some vintage Michael Foot in the Commons. Nobody does stuff like this in the HoC any more.

Waterstones · **Joined:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 8:26 pm **Posts:** 298

Why should I care What Foot has to say given that in the 30's He campaigned to have the RAF scrapped and carried on being best mates with Arthur Koestler even though Koestler had raped Foot's wife Jill and had a history of being rough with other women? :roll:

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:06 am

My, you are bitter, aren't you? What did he do to you?

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:12 am

Lots of people were against rearmament at the time, a not entirely surprising fact given the First World War.

Foot changed and co-wrote The Guilty Men. But you'd have ignored that if you'd been alive then, right? Not because it was wrong but because the author used to oppose rearmament?

Abernathy · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:38 am

Waterstones wrote:

Why should I care What Foot has to say given that in the 30's He campaigned to have the RAF scrapped and carried on being best mates with Arthur Koestler even though Koestler had raped Foot's wife Jill and had a history of being rough with other women? :roll:

Why should you care? Well you shouldn't, is the short and rather obvious answer, since he's not had much to say for some time. A little odd that that's what cranks your particular handle, particularly since Foot has been dead these two years and that your ire appears to have been prompted by a fairly innocent clip of Foot speaking in the house. Are you also annoyed that Anthony Burgess buggered a 16 year old waiter in 1953?

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:42 am

Best not tell him about Dorothy MacMillan and Bob Boothby...

bluebellnutter · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:59 am

Waterstones wrote:

Why should I care What Foot has to say given that in the 30's He campaigned to have the RAF scrapped and carried on being best mates with Arthur Koestler even though Koestler had raped Foot's wife Jill and had a history of being rough with other women? :roll:

He was clearly a bigger and more tolerant man than you.

Neil Kinnock was right

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