Kinnock's 'I warn you' speech was canny good. More prophetic than inspiring though I suppose. So the electorate thought anyway.
Neil Kinnock
"Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were 'thick'? Did they lack talent - those people who could sing and play, and recite poetry: those people who could make wonderful, beautiful things with their hands; those people who could dream dreams, see visions; those people who had such a sense of perception as to know in times so brutal, so oppressive, that they could win their way out of that by coming together?"
"I say to you in complete honesty, because this is the movement that I belong to, that I owe this party everything I have got - not the job, not being leader of the Labour Party, but every life chance that I have had since the time I was a child: the life chance of a comfortable home, with working parents, people who had jobs; the life chance of moving out of a pest and damp-infested set of rooms into a decent home, built by a Labour council under a Labour Government; the life chance of an education that went on for as long as I wanted to take it. Me and millions of others of my generation got all their chances from this movement. That is why I say that this movement, its values, its policies, applied in power, gave me everything that I have got - me and millions like me of my generation and succeeding generations. That is why it is my duty to be honest and that is why it is our function, our mission, our duty - all of us - to see that those life chances exist and are enriched and extended to millions more, who without us will never get the chance of fulfilling themselves."
"Here in this crowded, dangerous, beautiful world, there is only hope if there is hope together for all peoples."
"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, and I warn you not to grow old.""'No such thing as society', she says. No obligation to the community. No sense of solidarity. No principles of sharing or caring.
'No such thing as society'. No sisterhood, no brotherhood. No neighbourhood. No honouring other people's mothers and fathers. No succouring other people's little children.
'No such thing as society'. No number other than one. No person other than me. No time other than now.
No such thing as society, just 'me' and 'now'. That is Margaret Thatcher's society."
