... 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.

You could say the same about Maggie if you listened to some of her speeches on Europe....

Kinnock was a great orator - i really doubt he'd have made a great leader though.

so really you're just pissed off because he missed out on an extra £10bn? everything else was fine? how much are we borrowing every day at the moment?

We are borrowing massively at the moment because nothing was "saved" when times were good. Apparently there was to be no more boom and bust! Which might have been the most egotistical statement ever made by a PM.

ah, but edith doesn't take issue with him selling the gold, remember? are you one of the gold laptop mob who knew it was such a terrible thing to do at the time, alouise? how much did you buy?

Not Gold, our thing was Silver. Dh trades most asset classes, he knew precisely what was occurring.

sorry, not with you. if you could see at the time that Gordon was being a moron, why not take advantage? some trader your dh is... missing out on a gigantically obvious opportunity like that.

Actually, Aitch, personally I do (and did all along), and it's easy to find high level comment from 1999 and onward which shows there was contemporaneous opposition to the diversification. And banks and bankers did become rich from this (the individual cannot, of course, buy gold at these sorts of auctions unless amazingly rich in the first place) - so it was indeed traders who profited from the British public.

What I mean here is that I do not disagree with those who say the actual outcome of the diversification was not inevitable. After all, many people did genuinely believe in the euro in those days. Their optimism was not misplaced at the time, just because it was proved wrong. But one always hopes lessons will be learned.

And the big lesson is not to conduct a sale in a way which is so obviously giving you a poor deal. £9billion!

so it's purely because he announced his intention that he is a moron? fair enough. but that's absolutely not what is being said down-thread.

Precious metal in the form of bars/bullion is serialised and recorded. The government in times of need have been know to seize any stores held in private hands. A far more subtle and less traceable way of purchasing is through auction houses and buying antiques and jewellery.

...ponders why any of this is relevant to the thread...

and no, Kinnock was not a clairvoyant.

Erm, pondering, not dictating. How did you make that leap?

Kinnock was and remains a windbag; and has a very comfortable existence on the back of it with his pension as an ex EU Commissioner, plus whatever Glenys is bringing in too.

If he was as full of solidarity with the workers as you like to think, wouldn't he have foregone his massive EU pension? Wouldn't Mandelson as well? Kinnock is a hypocrite.

why post it, then, unless you were wishing to stop that particular conversation?

Can't you be clairvoyant and a hypocrite at the same time?

Aitch: Because I was wondering what it had to do with the thread, obviously. Just as I would wonder what a conversation about plastic vaginas might be doing on, say, a thread about vindictive MILs. Am I not allowed to ponder?

Carry on as you were with your discussion about gold and silver prices - although I'm sure you don't need permission - just wondered what it had to do with the topic.

if you read your thread you'd know exactly why...

see i very much remember it as that triumphal 'are yaaaaaaalriiiiiiight?' speech as screwing it for him. the lightbulb was just the clincher.

Clairvoyant? No.
Idiot savant? Perhaps.