... in thinking Neil Kinnock was clairvoyant?

[woollyideas]

It took a few decades and two Tory governments and a Tory-lite New Labour government but Neil definitely could see into the future. This is what he said in June 1983:

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.

I think that Kinnock would have taken power back then but the threat from the Soviet was still too great and he wasn't trusted by "the establishment" to stand strong in the face of it whereas Mrs Thatcher was.

I'm no fan of Kinnock but I think he was on course to win that election. He's made a shed lot more money out of the Euro parliament though.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics-news/2012/02/18/former-pm-gordon-brown-earns-1-3m-from-speeches-but-gives-it-all-to-charity-86908-23755091/

gordon brown has earned £1.3 mill and given it all to charity since no longer being PM.

Not quite true though is it. He has paid it to his company, more tax efficient that way. Gold selling, pension siphoning one eyed bigot
A'body the gither

Gordon is a moron...

Modern democracies are a sham where the choice is what colour tie do you wish your leader to wear.
Proportional representation goes some way to address this as smaller parties actually manage to get some representation but it is still not perfect.
I don't know what the answer is and I wish I did, but it certainly ain't some pretty words said thirty years ago (though it is a good speech.)

Who's Neil Kinnock?

The Welsh Windbag clairvoyant?

Kinnock virtually invented the gravy train and it's still not run out of steam - stick a turbine on it and he'll keep it going forever.

In common with the majority of his ilk, the only prescience he's displayed is lining his pockets and those of his family members.

Did a klaxon ring in party hq or summat?

It's a good speech and it is rather prescient, op. Hence the rush to belittle you, Neil Kinnock and anyone else who could help shift attention.

He wasn't clairvoyant, or indeed particularly prescient in that speech.

From OP: "it took a few decades ..." This is the absolute archetypal phrase of those who believe in woo (eg followers of Nostradamus), and coes about in this case because he isn't actually making any predictions. He's saying some general (and well crafted) things, and if you wait long enough, some ewill happen. It's like setting a horoscope a few decades in advance - most of it will be true at some undefined future point, especially when criteria for meeting the prediction is undefined.

Do I want Kinnock back? Hell no. Never took to him, and was an unsuccessful leader.

"Did a klaxon ring in party hq or summat?"

It's the Labour party who was bubbled for telling supporters (via Facebook, and presumably other means too) what to write. I've always thought the instructions to MNers must include "AstroTurfy title as a standing instruction".

But you are right, one pro-Labour thread starts, and lads of Labour supporters come out to "play the man not the ball" (ie use repetitive, and now quite tired, Tory bashing phrases). I wonder if whoever wrote the speech for Kinnock is getting royalties - this speech has popped up on a number of MN threads, and on other sites, in a very short timescale.

Are you from where your name suggests Edith. The labour party would need more than a klaxon to be heard in Rutland!

"Brown?s spokeswoman said yesterday: ?Not a single penny from speeches nor books goes to Mr Brown personally.
?His sole personal earnings are his salary as an MP because he has also renounced the prime ministerial pension he was entitled to receive immediately he retired as PM.?"

lots of countries had to sell their gold at that time, not just the UK, urchicken. and what's with the disablist language?

We didn't "have" to sell gold then. And we certainly didn't have to announce it in advance in a way that artificially depressed prices. Very imprudent.

did we not? i am sure i remember reading that we did, according to some legislation or other. it's hazy... must see if i can find the article. it pretty much called all this 'brown bottom' stuff a load of bullshit.

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/03/gold_and_gordon_brown.html

here's something from robert peston, worth having a look at the comments underneath, particularly the ones about hindsight.

those comments are great, actually. mostly dumb insults about brown, much in the manner of this 'pile-on' thread but the bottom line appears to be that if they all knew that gold was going to massively increase in value then they must have bought it at the low price and are presumably typing from their mansions on gold-plated laptops.

There was no legislative compulsion. It was a decision by the then government to diversify holdings away from just gold. Some commentators did indeed decry that at the time but, the "end of boom and bust" believers were indeed the dominant voice then and their case was that there was no need any longer for the "safe haven" of gold. They have been proved wrong - on this, as on much else.

The imprudence arose from the cack-handed execution of the sale. Between announcing the sale, and it actually happening, gold prices fell by 10% in anticipation of it. This is the part that was contemporaneously evident, much decried at the time and since, and totally avoidable.

It cost about £10billion. Mostly straight into profits for bankers.

mmmmmmmmmmmm. you should comment on that piece, edith. your opinion holds no more sway over what i think than any of the other 89 comments, no reason why you should be any more right than the many other theories advanced as to why he had to do it or what the results would have been had he not.

anyway, your own personal gold reserves, bought when the price was tanking and with the benefit of your own sure knowledge that it was a stupid thing to do... they must be looking good now, eh? you must be pleased with that shrewd financial decision.

???????

I'm agreeing with most of the comments (the end of boom and bust was the dominant view at the time).

And I'm not trying to "sway" anyone - just correcting the obvious inaccuracy (about compulsion), and the difference between the theory of diversification of holdings (could have been right or wrong) and the (much criticised even at the time) decision to enact that by heralded block sale, even (and especially) after price collapse.

Personally, I couldn't benefit from it - not being in a financial position to make investments at the time. But it's not exactly secret how incredulous banks were that it went through with it after the price fall. And bank/funds did do remarkably well at that point.

We have a government who is forcing the vulnerable, people with disabilities and the terminally ill to work for free for multi national corporations so that they may profit, and paying said corporations £1200 a head for accepting this free labour. They require people to work a set number of hours to qualify for state help when there is already 8 people wanting to work for every single vacancy in this country, even before forcing the sick, disabled and carers out into the workplace too. There is not enough work to go around and they are shrinking the work market further with Workfare.

We have a government that is reforming sickness and disability benefits in a way that is actually retrospective - consultant and doctors' reports are to be ignored over the word of a non medically trained pen pusher with an agenda to get people off benefits.... see stories of a man in a coma being found 'fit for work' and the man who died of a heart attack in an ATOS lobby after being found 'fit for work'.

Has anyone heard of the policy they are trying to introduce that means if you have a disability or learning disability you will become 'Do Not Resuscitate'??? Eugenics by another name that one.

What is really shocking is that some of this was started under the last Labour government. What makes me despair is that none of this is opposed by the current Labour opposition.

The Labour party today is a very different animal from the one that existed when Kinnock made that speech.

There is no hope if you're not fit, healthy and lucky enough to have not lost your job in this recession. There is nobody to save us and nobody out there cares enough to stop us sleepwalking into a country where healthcare and education will be for the most privileged whilst others die due to circumstances beyond their control.

Do people quite understand the the Benefits cap of 26 K INCLUDES the money that the claimant earns themselves?
Very, very few people who dont work at all get 26 K in benefits.
The majority of benefits claimants are working people.

For example:
you earn 20k a year working full time, you have 3 kids and live in a 3 bed flat in London.
Your 3 bed flat is 15500 a year. Your council tax is another 1000. Your bills 2500.
Your travel card for work is 1500.
If you get the maximum top up possible under the cap, you will be left with 5500 for the year to pay for food, clothes school dinners for you and 3 kids.

That's £105 per week.
It's hardly a fortune.
And if you have 5 kids, it's still £105 a week. That's £17 a week per person.

interesting how you think you agree with most of the comments, Edith. most of them say that hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I agree with what Glitterknickaz said and it leaves me terrified!! I never really took much notice of him at the time as was only young but deep down I think Neil Kinnock was a decent family man with morals unlike the PM we have now who is all for making the rich richer, poor poorer and the sick sicker!

You do have to be careful about dredging up speeches from the past. Someone might invoke Rivers of Blood.

Hindsight on the end of boom and bust, hindsight on advisability of diversification of reserves. I have said I agree, and yes the comments agree. No issue there.

But not on incompetence of how the sales were actually transacted. That was self evident at the time. They needn't have been block sales, and the drop in price after the first announcement should have given any prudent person pause.

If you go back and look at contemporaneous negative comment from 1999, you will see there were those who said that the sales were not just transacted wrongly, but were also wrong in themselves. These commentators have been proved right on those issues, and also in the reason they gave for why UK (and others) chose that moment to diversify. It was attributed to preparations for joining the euro (and the euro was one of the currencies we bought with the gold proceeds). So I suppose one can say "It could have been worse". But equally it could have been better, had the sales been transacted to an adequate standard.