Thirty years on, it still hits the spot. Kinnock spoke of people and experiences of which Thatcher had not the faintest understanding. The reason she stayed in power throughout the 1980s was not that she was a better leader, or was even that popular. It was because Owen, Jenkins, Williams and Rodgers split the anti-Thatcher vote by forming the SDP. Breaking the mould of British politics was their constant mantra, but in reality all they broke was the lives and dreams of the people Thatcher never spoke for. In the end, the SDP got fewer votes than the Monster Raving Loony party and they disappeared, but their damage was already done.
The Gang of Four, with Shirley Williams nodding sanctimoniously and insisting they were going to break the mould of British politics, but all they broke in the end was the spirit and the lives of the people Kinnock was talking about, who had no platform on which to stand. Thatcher strode onwards, but Williams got over the disappointment because she had her professorships in the US to fall back on. She is long gone, but the hurt endures.
I'm sorry I've never got this. Someone forgot to tell Hugh Hudson that Kinnock was running for Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the height of the cold war not empathiser in chief of a homeless shelter. Sheesh.
When his daughter-in-law held her first public speech on the first of may 2005, it included something called a tile-table that had gone out of fashion by 1985. Suffice to say, no one got it.
It's true what they say about Kinnock - this video is too much about him and about things that only really appeal to Labour voters. If you were a 1987 middle class or swing voter, there is nothing in this video that might swing you. Wow - so he's young and has humble origins - big deal.
As indeed was that of John Major the grey man of 'back to basics' and personal morality, err hmmEdwina aside. Humour aside it is a sad and terrible legacy we are now enduring as a nation after 13 years of corrupt, incompetent , self-serving Tory leadership....a new Labour govt cannot come soon enough....but what will they inherit ? A broken country, asset stripped to the bone, cast adrift from its rightful place in European and international affairs after the disaster of a calamitous Brexit referendum, and so many cruel years of austerity estimated to have cost well over 300.000 lives, and then the further loss of 200.000 due to the mismanagement of Covid under a morally bankrupt, corrupt and depraved leadership of Boris " let the bodies pile high" Johnson. Not so funny after all I'm afraid...
I wish I had seen that. I remember the SDP, inspired by the popular reaction to Kinnock the Movie, rushed out their own version, but it was so roughly made that it might have been a parody itself. They even copied the tracking shot at 8:27, but the camera was so shaky that Spitting Image would have been ashamed to use it.
Nonsense - he got trounced in the 1990 vote of no confidence and, as Gerald Kaufman said, he could be brilliant some days and rubbish on others - not a consistent performer
@ToaJoe Once again I notice that you make no attempt to answer any of the negative points I raised with you about Neil Kinjnock. You call me scum because I dont like Neil Kinnock and presume that I am conservative. I vote for the person and in my local election I voted for an elderly man in a wheel chair as my local councillor ,because he does his job well and is the best man for the job . His political party .......................LABOUR .
