Neil Kinnock on Margaret Thatcher: I couldn't admire her as a politician
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2023
- Join us for the next instalment of our Unlocked series, as Professor Anand Menon sits down with former Labour leader, European Commissioner and stalwart of British politics, The Rt Hon Lord Kinnock.
Neil will be joining us to reflect on his time as Labour leader and assess Keir Starmer’s chances of getting the keys to number 10 at the next election, consider Britain’s place in the world after Brexit, and give his take on the state of British politics.
Apparently he missed an open goal regarding Westland affair in 1986, though he didn't realise it at the time. It would have been that she had misled parliament.
She thought she was toast but survived as he & his team were not on the ball.
….and of course good old Dennis , as chair of Trafalgar House, didn’t benefit from “pillow talk” on the back of her policies. We see today the inability of the U.K. to manufacture rail track for example, to manufacture its panzers…Challenger 3…now made by Krupp , and we see the housing crisis particularly in the Tory south, as a consequence of her policies which created an unbalanced economy.
He wasn't in the same league as her intellectually. That maddened him
Nonsense. On the contrary, Thatcher was not as bright as she was credited by her cheerleaders and there were Tories that knew she was not a first class intellect. Cameron has a high intellect suited to the job of PM although the decision to call the referendum was misjudged in the opinion of many. Kinnock was perfectly able intellectually and the claims he was not were based on prejudice not evidence. All part of the egregious undermining of him to play the man not the ball.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Thatcher was certainly bright enough. A woman getting a chemistry degree from Oxford in the 1940s must be capable.
@@RogerJJSmith Clearly you have missed the point and do not understand the difference between a first class intellect and having sufficient academic ability to achieve in a particular discipline. Bright enough is not the same as a first class intellect. Thatcher's intellectual limitations were noticed when she was at Oxford and also by some of her peers when in politics.
@@eightiesmusic1984 The OP, howardwoollinn, was comparing Kinnock to Thatcher. Thatcher had a far greater intellect than Kinnock. That's not seriously in dispute. Kinnock had neither a "first class intellect" nor a "sufficient academic ability to achieve in a particular discipline". As to Thatcher herself, she obtained a second class degree (equivalent to a 2.1 today) from Oxford at a time when only 3% of the population (and
This man gave up everthing he believed in to try and get power and still failed.
Absurd. Provide evidence.
@@californiadreamin8423 Back in the 1970s & like his heroes Benn, Foot & Shore, he was virulently anti the Common Market (as the EU was known back then) because they & he rightly saw that mass uncontrolled & mass unskilled immigration would destroy '' British jobs for job workers'' & whilst Benn, Foot & Shore stood steadfast & resolute in their completely virulently anti - EU stance, Kinnock & ALL of his immediate family became millionaires by selling their lefty political souls by working for the EU for cold, hard cash.....
@@frankbrennan1619 Don’t talk soft….provide evidence….mass uncontrolled immigration my arse. Thatcher and Tory short sightedness trashed British Industry….and no one else.
@@frankbrennan1619so how does that work with garage , happy to take EU money, while condemning it's existence. Isn't theat the very height of hypocrisy?
@@californiadreamin8423 It is well known, and documented by the BBC, that he took Labor further to the right, dashed the parties principles, and ignored his own voting blacks interests in an effort to beat the conservatives. There is legit footage all over UA-cam, an entire series from the BBC, documenting how Kinnock betrayed his own beliefs in a lust for the Prime Minister position.
What she did was so destructive. She Made England relevant
Yes, she made England relevant and put us on the map, in the sense that we are the only country in the world that has a privatised water system. This means that you can now have free shit with your coffee every morning. So yeah, there you go.
I still chuckle at his woeful performances at PMMQs against Thatcher.
Seriously that's your takeout?25% of industrial output lost and never to return inside 4 years through wilfully destructive policies and you are preoccupied by PMQs? Pitiful
@@markryan4036. Exactly, and her prodigy have continued the process of trashing the country. Grantham, her political homeland, and the centre of a farming community , are seeing now what the industrial regions of the U.K. suffered then. My heart bleeds for every Tory in the south living with negative equity and mortgage repayments exploding. They’re reaping the whirlwind.
@@markryan4036Those jobs would have been lost anyways, as they were lost in every single country at that level of economic development. Only in the UK are people stupid enough to blame global economic transformations on a single individual.
@@tyronebiggums8660 Oh please!! Don't display your ignorance. Thatcher's government's policies destroyed whole communities, Linwood, Corby, sold off our council houses and generally disadvantaged the working class and vulnerable. Meanwhile, as usual under a Tory government the rich got richer. None of this needed to be done as harshly and had nothing to do with global economics.
@@tyronebiggums8660when you say the "world" you mean she was copying Reagan
If the worst he had to say was that during her tenure we lost 25% of manufacturing, from a globally looking point of view, he hasn't got that much bad to say since similar shifts albeit smaller were happening everywhere in the west. What he doesn't mention is the massive massive growth in services and high value jobs that happened under her watch
where's the rest of it?
GRAVY!
Opposition? What opposition?
Bitter old men who only got success in the EU....along with the whole family...Remember the beach?
Neil Kinnock. Mostly harmless.
Baldy Welsh windbag was the oft used refrain back in the day.....
He didn't like whistleblowers while working for the EU.
What did he mean by "weaponry and forces?"
The unions lost our manufacturing, not any politician
If she had gone to prison for her war crimes the world might have become a better place.
Inflation and the cost of living had a much greater effect and Thatcher curtailed the unions campaigning for appropriate wages. Tories always forget the working class is not the servile or lower class. Whilst many of her values she tried to campaign on were admirable, they lacked compassion for expedience sake and treated those who don't see themselves as middle or upper class in utter contempt. Regardless of your moral view of how people live their lives, the point is, she was Prime Minister of the whole country and she left a good portion of it behind with her policies. She was a remarkable woman that should have been born a hundred years earlier.
Some of us were locked up for criticising that 'remarkable woman'.@@jackanorybiggins
Creative destruction is a thing and you'd think Neil would know that.
Excellent answer and sums up everything I despise about right-wing politicians who use institutions and power to their advantage.
Mrs Thatcher was correct when She said of Labour-Party-Socialism was just "a matter of taking cash out of the pockets of people that had earned it, and giving it to people that have not earned it" . . . so they vote for you
@@chrislambert9435What, like landlords?
Can you imagine what Britain would look like now if he had been Prime Minister. Someone strong needed to take over and reshape things, she was that person (Thatcher). It's not a matter of being admired or not, things had to change and they did. She wouldn't give a feck whether he admired her or not !!
Bollox! Most divisive leader ever..... and not for the greater good!
Yes the UK's balance of payments defiantly changed Thatcher (Con) minus 72,000M. That record loss despite the first four years 1980,81,82 and 83 the UK had a surplus of 8339M of course that was before her policies destroyed our manufacturing base.
This country is in the utter mess it is BECAUSE of her !. Without her there would never have been Cameron or Johnson.
Thatcher was re-elected on the back of the Falkland war. Hang on, Labour had kept a submarine on patrol in the South Atlantic to deter Argentina , and Thatcher and the Tory media couldn’t even pretend that an invasion fleet couldn’t be sunk !! Rule Britannia and the efforts the Tories will take to stay in power, whatever the cost.
@@ogribiker8535 And no Sir War Criminal Bliar & his Goebbels Campbell either....
Kinnock still salty that thatcher beat him at 2 elections 😂
Spoken as if we're now in a place to reign down trophies on how that time in politics was handled 😭
incidentally, did you know that Woking Council just declared bankruptcy and the UK taxpayer needs to stump up £1.4B to cover it. No question mark.
@@chrismcgourty1756 No different than Croydon Council where Labour ran up £1.6B on dodgy property investments. No enquiry as yet into how fat the brown envelopes were that went into certain back pockets but one lady who used to sit on the planning committee has just purchased a nice gaff in the Cotswolds.
@@justonecornetto80 Yes indeed, so both parties same paradigm, the seed came from? Thatcher. Field of dreams, you build it, they will come. Enforces Kinnocks point.
More so, we get to debate but not debate a two party system that has been in total collapse since the 1980's. Thanks for proving that out.
Which general elections did he face her in, think it was only the 1987 one
Thatcher beat him in 1 election 1987. He lost too the Tories again(just) in 1992 under John Major.
Nice for him to get off the gravy train long enough to give this little homily
Feeding heavily from the eu trough.
This is like bitter Monty Python producer John Howard Davies ranting about Benny Hill who always beat them in the ratings.
You got owned buddy. Admit it.
Sadly kinnock is right
He must be consoled by his failure in U.K. politics by having his family on the EU Gravy train...
His wife has just died.
Neil Pillock
Mrs Thatcher was correct when She said of Labour-Party-Socialism was just "a matter of taking cash out of the pockets of people that had earned it, and giving it to people that have not earned it" . . . so they vote for you
When a party campaigns on the theme that 'Labour isn't working' and has a poster showing the dole queue it is rational to expect that the leader of that party wants to reduce unemployment. When the Tory party cut expenditure during a recession it exacerbated the loss of jobs. Margaret Thatcher may have suffered from a shortage of intelligence but the lack of honesty and the total hypocrisy are breath-taking.
And conservative economic policies are to drain wealth from the middle and working classes and transfer it to the already wealthy.
She consistently mopped the floor with him in Parliament from what I saw, so he's never going to be generous or gracious. He's never going to say he admired the debating skills she used to show him up everytime. So small not to even acknowledge that she was a formidable opponent.
Mrs Stalin.
Soar grapes Neil
He never got MT at all....the power she had was the power to restrict the power of government, in fact she gave more power back to the people than any government before or since!
Lol any evidence for this ridiculous claim?
Mrs Thatcher was correct when She said of Labour-Party-Socialism was just "a matter of taking cash out of the pockets of people that had earned it, and giving it to people that have not earned it" . . . so they vote for you
@@chrislambert9435 a simple 'no' would have sufficied
You mean like when she used govenrmental power to arrest union members?
Well said, nothing good about Thatcher
Thatcher let the rot in!
What a plank
Sadly he's right
Sick of hearing has beens opinions
Out classed by thatcher
84-85 miners strike. Neil Kinnock aka Judas
Kinnock knew the miners were never ever going to win in the 1984 -1985 year long strike simply because the mad Scargill didn't have a ballot for the completely united front necessary to help endure such terrible hardship & suffering for striking miners & their families & not forgetting the small matter of him speaking many years ago that he knew Thatcher ALWAYS saw mad Scargill as a formidable opponent & so never ever to be underestimated, whilst he knew for ''a complete fact'' that mad Scargill underestimated her & the rest is political history...
@@frankbrennan1619 I don't think anyone underestimated her. Did Kinnock also know that the miners strike was a watershed moment for the trade unions and the entire working class of this country? He lifted not one finger to assist the miners in any way, in fact he was the biggest critic of the strike. Calling for a ballot would have given the Government time to stockpile coal and further plan for the defeat of the miners, I'm sure Kinnock also knew that.
@@214jock Like it or not, mad Scargill certainly underestimated Thatcher, as Kinnock categorically stated years later & mad Scargill knew for sure the strike did not have the completely necessary universal support amongst miners for the one long year strike to have ANY chance of succeeding & mad Scargill (& Thatcher too) totally knew this, hence no ballot & hence never ever ANY chance of the miners succeeding & that's that & all now simply political history from forty years ago.....