I would be interested in knowing who produced this four part documentary, and whether they made other political documentaries. I find the interviews, footage and narration to be really excellent, and engaging
Same, you don't get informative and impartial documentaries like this anymore. The times when the media gave decent information and relative honesty are dead.
Yep. You couldn't help liking Neil. I still remember the fiasco of that 1992 Sheffield rally. Damn stupid that was. All that razzamatazz. Then when he jumped up on the platform at the end and went, in the words of Dennis Skinner 'Alwight, alwight, alwight!!'. In fact he did it four times I think. His exuberance got the better of him, and the Welsh boyo came out. Nothing wrong with the Welsh boyo, but it wasn't the time or place.
I find Tony Benn fascinating . I've read all but one of his diaries and in some ways have respect for him. On the other hand having just turned 50 and re watching this it (being reminded of the 1980s) it doesn't half stick out like the proverbial saw one what a profoundly arrogant and stupid man he could be. Thank God he never became Leader of The Labour Party . Thank God , Allah and any other Mystical Deity you might choose to nominate he never became Prime Minister. What a God Awful Dystopian Mess we would have ended up in had that nightmare ever come to fruition. Mr Kinnocks speech at The Labour Conference highlighted was to me then and still is THE seminal political speech of the mid 1980s. And for that and that alone he is deserving of profound respect. The present Labour Party needs still to have a serious look at itself and relearn the same lessons AGAIN . The lack of calibre of many of its high profile figures ( and others ) and quite frankly its current tranche of female MPs ( Angela Raynor , Dawn Butler , Emily Thornberry and lately Lisa Nandy et all , frankly I could go on and on ) is truly shocking . An insult to the Giants of previous eras from within Labour Ranks who did so much to improve the lot of working class people over the generations. Message to Keir Starmer ( I ain't calling you Sir ) either stop it and improve drastically including growing a pair to get rid of the muppets around you , STOP the WOKE CRAP ( trust me working class people view it all with utter disdain) or just pack up and give somebody else a chance. Ban Thornberry from ever appearing again on TV on behalf of The Party and find some way somehow of sacking Raynor. That'd do as at least a starter for ten !!!!!!!
Two-thirds of the conference rose in condemnation of Kinnock's speech, according to Tony Mulhearn, but based on what I've seen of the conference footage, it looks more like a clear majority was in support of Kinnock's speech. Is that the same impression the rest of you have?
Morgan Rigg You're absolutely right. The Militant Tendency are a thoroughly nasty bunch who have no qualms about distorting the truth to suit themselves.
If I recall correctly, Steve Richards described it as half and half, although that's probably more a figure of speech than anything. A lot of our impression is based on where the producers choose to point their cameras, but it certainly seems like anyone who says that 2/3 were standing to condemn Kinnock is either a fool or a liar.
There is a particular facet of human nature that is utterly disgusting....not choosing someone just because they aren't "packaged" right. So what if Kinnock liked to dance and sing, people who were the swing voters would chose someone they disagreed with more (Thatcher) just because she acted more "dignified" even though they might still think Kinnock had their interests more in mind? It tells you why we get such bad leaders, because the vast majority of voters want their ears tickled and flash over those who would be the best qualified but not as flashy and packaged.
It had nothing to do with packaging. I and others voted against him because he was an emotional fool. Look at the speeches that he made - all emotional drivel, no substance, no policies. We could see that he was not fit to run the nation. One other fact that they don't report in this program - he was a violent bully and was in the news more than once for assaulting people.
David Elliott 44%-the same amount as Hitler got in Germany....Funny how you forget that, moron. In real democracies, governments that get less than 50% of the vote have to form a coalition.
I remember watching live on TV Neil Kinnoch's speech about taxis scuttling around with redundancy notices, and the cameras panning around the hall. And I have seen the video several times over the years and I'm stunned that Tony Mulhearn can try to claim that around two-thirds of the audience were against Kinnoch and gave overwhelming support to the Liverpool Council. That is just total bollocks. While they clearly did have quite a few supports in the hall it was certainly a relatively small minority. Either Mulhearn is doing the "if you going to tell a lie, tell a big one" or he is delusional. I note he is a big Corbyn backer; now how unsurprised should I be! Derek Twatton - another Corbyn supporter - is now an international property developer and quite the wealthy capitalist. He is the classic "man to pig and pig to man".
The Liverpool council was standing up to Thatcher's cuts and Kinnock, as he admits himself in this documentary, saw it as a political opportunity to denounce them to make him look like a moderate.
Bloviating over-emoting from the unprincipled windbag as usual. Though he's only correct so far in terms of the England + Wales results, as the 168 seats remains a postwar low for Labour.
Bennites/Corbynites were born to oppose, mired in their own importance-leaving the rest of us to suffer perpetual Tory rule-Kinnock was far braver than Benn or Corbyn could ever hope to be-anyone can play to their own gallery but it takes real courage to reach out for the sake of the wider electorate
I'm an American, and at about the 38:00 mark, I recognize that the party conference is singing to the tune of what is clearly 'Stars and Stripes Forever'. Anyone here have any idea what rendition that is or what lyrics are being sung?
Me, too. It's rare to see a politician being so self-critical and modest. He has no need to be, in my view. He is a decent, generous-spirited man who improved the fortunes of the Labour party - slowly, but surely. Without his efforts, Labour would have remained a self-indulgent protest movement and never regained power and with it the chance to improve people's lives.
You're wrong Baron Kinnock; you lost because you abandoned your socialist principles. If History teaches us anything is that you should never compromise on your principles. Long live Tony Benn a thousand times!
Rubbish - on June the 9th 1983 the British public resoundingly rejected a manifesto devised by Benn and full of Benn's policies. Do not blame the Thatcher victory on the Falklands - that explains the fact, not the scale of Labour's defeat. The scale of Labour's defeat was chiefly Benn's making.
Frederick Cowell Labour could have promised an end to taxes and unlimited free beer and sex to the electorate and lost the 1983 election. Cut the disingenuousness, would you?
There is no legitimate socialist party in power in Europe. Sure, you have Parti Socialiste, the S&D, and the "Socialists International" but they've defacto embraced the free market. The world really has gone to to the right, and parties either adapt or die.
A Thatcher - Kinnock battle in the 1992 general election would have been fascinating to watch (in a morbid way). Whoever was the least unpopular at the time would have scraped a narrow victory. I suspect it would have resulted in a single seat majority either way despite the opinion polls saying Kinnock would have romped home.
I always said that Thatcher v Kinnock 1992, would have resulted in a Kinnock government with a 15 majority, Thatcher was getting well unpopular (Poll tax, Europe etc). Major won in 1992 simply because he was not Thatcher.
I think Kinnock could have edged it, barely, if he had held a late night rally the day before the election and done at least 20 "We're Alrights", to thunderous applause.
What defeatists Kinnock and Hattersely were, they, the Miners, were never just heading straight into disaster nor, in response to Hattersely comments saying Labour should have condemned the 'Scargill decision', it was not Scargill decision to close 20 pits and lose 20,000 jobs and nor was it his decision to take industrial action, it was agreed by the NUM delegate conference, moreover, the Miners would have won the dispute if the Notts miners along with South Derbyshire and Leicestershire had joined the strike action, and when NACODS almost pulled the plug on the dispute, the Miners were very close to victory, it was never an inevitable defeat...
The call by the far-Left (or hard Left, whichever you prefer) to “expel the Tories” is amusing when one considers that just a few years before, the far-Left was battling opposing factions of the Labour Party while their opponents were calling for them to direct their efforts against the Conservatives. Fast forward to the mid-80s and all of a sudden, the far-Left was calling for unity and for Labour to direct their efforts against the Tories. Funny, isn't it?
I'm an outsider looking in here and feel free to correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me, looking at this part and the other 2 parts before, the Labour party doesn't know what its looking for, especially in the leadership department. They're supposed to be a party fighting for the working class and such but when Neil Kinnock is in charge, they say he's too much like the folks they are representing, didn't want Healy because one guy says he's a thug, another guy says he's too jovial and another guy say he can't suffer fools gladly, Foot rather want to be right than Prime Minister, Benn looks like a guy who wants to be in charge but the way he does thing makes more enemies than allies and the guys Labour wants is a guy who looks like a banker or a lawyer...both aren't exactly working class, aren't they?
As Benn says, the Conference was becoming a US style Convention. Blair continued from Kinnock and made the party even more autocratic. Only now is democracy being brought back. I hope I won't see that reversed in the next two years.
And guess what if you don't sellout which I disagree - You call it "sellout", I call it "compromise", the one who suffers is not the metropolitan Len McClusky / Jon Lansman sort of Corbynistas, but the real people who are desperate of a Labour government.
I don't buy the public rejecting Kinnock because of his working-class Wesh roots. David Lloyd George was the most successful politician of his generation, one that was far more class-conscious.
Perhaps, but that was a different time; it's hard to imagine someone coming up in those circumstances now (it's hard to even imagine someone following the leave school, go to work, climb the ladder model of more recent examples like Callaghan and Major).
The Labour party grew out of the Trades Union movement (and the Methodist church). As soon as they broke the links with unions they were finished. Thatcher was no fool. She knew that if she broke and then destroyed the Unions, that would finish the Labour party. A lot of her administration was designed to do just that (which is why she said that her 'proudest achievement' was 'Tony Blair and New Labour').
Bryan Gould is wrong as to why people didn't take to Kinnock, he's a man who'll use 30 words when two will do. And that sounds like someone who doesn't really know what he's talking about. To quote Ronald Reagan: "if you're explaining you're losing"
I presume you mean that Kinnock is a man who'll use 30 words... in which case I tend to agree from the interviews I've heard. Great orator, real passion, but when he gets going he can be very boring to listen to at length.
I much prefer "Land of Hope and Glory" than the travesty of "The Red Flag." Whenever I think of a Red Flag, I think of the flag of the former USSR. Margaret Thatcher said, in a speech that is on this channel, that underneath the re branding of Labour's platform was still the same old socialism.
Watching this reminds just what a self-righteous, sanctimonious prig Tony Benn was. Were it not for Kinnock's reforms and changes to the Labour Party then New Labour's victory in 1997 would have never happened. Kinnock did the spade work for Blair to come later.
@@npe1 Autocratic control of the party by the leadership , removal of any semblance of socialist policies. Mandelson saying that people should not feel guilty for getting filthy rich and the complaisance about the gap between the rich and poor If a right winger like Roy Hattersley didn’t have a good word to say about New Labour , it makes you think
Ahh, the beginning of New Labour's style over substance, spin, spin, spin. Can't show Kinnock sipping a beer. I guess you can't blame em, when you've decided not to have any ideology or policies of your own, what separates you from the tories? The politics of personality of course.
That is what Blair was so good at as Opposition Leader- he marketed New Labour as some hipster "left wing" ideology when in fact it wasn't. The Labour Party in the 1990s went in the direction of burying real ideological discourse which has unfortunately allowed low-grade career politicians to riddle the majority of the PLP in the present day.
Jeremy Leatherman ah yes you’re one of those that think the Labour government of 1997-2010 was the complete same as the Tories. How wrong could you be.
Always found that "first Kinnock in a thousand generations" (i.e. 30,000 years) to go to university absurd. His own university, Cardiff, was founded 100 years before.
Chris Mullin comes across in his later diaries as a ghastly curmudgeon, forever attacking "barbarians" and "feral youths" in a most un-socialist manner. He then attacks 'benefit culture' while never showing any idea how to get rid of benefit culture. In this, however (admittedly in 1995 before perhaps he matured) he should have shown recognition that where the miners were balloted they rejected the strike, and they only came out because Scargill called them out. Scargill did not call them out to get any improvement in wages or conditions, he did so to topple the government. Maybe in 1974 that worked, by 1985 people realised that was illegitimate. If Mullin wants anyone to blame for the collapse of working class dignity in the 80s and 90s, he should stop blaming Thatcher, and look to Scargill (now safely ensconced in his NUM funded Barbican flat).
Having watched this series several times, I realise now that the world wouldn't want a Labour party led by Benn because it would have broken the global order of things. He was let down by advertising himself as a socialist and ennabling scaremongering about a Soviet takeover, whereas he would've been the last man that the Soviets would've wanted as prime minister of Britain. The miners strike was our equivalent of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, in the sense that in both cases each country could pursue radical policies without Communist association. In a neutral sense it could also be compared to Germany in the 1930s, where they attempted a clean break from the international financial system. Not that I would compare Benn to Hitler per se, the former would be far too dignified to be stood next to mister toothbrush.
So...according to this documentary, Labour prefer their PM to be boring. I mean, in a part before, they mentioned that they wouldn't want Healey to be PM because of him being open and goofy and then they didn't want Kinnock too. It's not like Old Labour had a penchant for average boring guys..look at Harold Wilson. That man oozes charisma. Tell me, people of the UK, to an outsider (from a country that was once a colony of yours..and no, not America) what do you think a Labour leader should be?
Gosh, that must have taken you months to come up with that insightful political thought Shahid. I guess the Mirror Group, and the off shore owned and tax avoiding Guardian are doing fantastic business. Tell me, did you get you get all that from the book 101 Political Cliches, or are you Owen Jones ghost writer?
Interesting that the narrator said, at the end of the program, that Kinnock had to move Labour “further to the right”. A more accurate description, surely, would be, “further to the centre”. Nobody would have described the 1987 British Labour Party as remotely right or even centrist.
"The emphasis was on packaging; policy could be left to another day" And this is why I detest the right of the Labour party. It just seems like an opportunistic game to them and to think they had the audacity to demonize Militant and nowadays Momentum! There are exceptions of course. Prescott is a lad!
Jerome, what direction do you think the Labour party should now head in? I can not believe Corbyn didn't have the decency to resign the morning after a catastrophic night for the Labour party. Corbyn ultimately came with too much baggage, his IRA connections, his lack of leadership and his ideological blind spots to abhorrent regimes around the world which are on the left. I'm struggling to see what positives he has bought to the party? Michael Foot and Corbyn may have both been on the left, but at least Foot came across as an intelligent, decent man with the ability to compromise on some issues. Corbyn has displayed none of these qualities.
This is by far the best political series i have ever seen and im not a Labour voter
I would be interested in knowing who produced this four part documentary, and whether they made other political documentaries. I find the interviews, footage and narration to be really excellent, and engaging
Same, you don't get informative and impartial documentaries like this anymore. The times when the media gave decent information and relative honesty are dead.
Google it?
Michael Cockerill has made many political documentaries.
The Conservative version is The Downing Street Years, also very good.
"love me love my dog".... Oh Neil 🤣🤣
On a serious note it shouldn't be forgotten that Neil Kinnock really did ensure the survival of the party.
Yep. You couldn't help liking Neil. I still remember the fiasco of that 1992 Sheffield rally. Damn stupid that was. All that razzamatazz. Then when he jumped up on the platform at the end and went, in the words of Dennis Skinner 'Alwight, alwight, alwight!!'. In fact he did it four times I think. His exuberance got the better of him, and the Welsh boyo came out. Nothing wrong with the Welsh boyo, but it wasn't the time or place.
The sanctimonious piousness of Chris Mullen in this video is breathtaking. "Let me explain things to you. I alone understand."
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to put these on, fascinating
Love the little commentaries at the very end! hahaha
I'm a lefty and even I find the Liverpool Councillors contemptible.
"June 9, 1983 - never, ever again will we experience that!"
And then came December 12, 2019.
I find Tony Benn fascinating . I've read all but one of his diaries and in some ways have respect for him. On the other hand having just turned 50 and re watching this it (being reminded of the 1980s) it doesn't half stick out like the proverbial saw one what a profoundly arrogant and stupid man he could be. Thank God he never became Leader of The Labour Party . Thank God , Allah and any other Mystical Deity you might choose to nominate he never became Prime Minister. What a God Awful Dystopian Mess we would have ended up in had that nightmare ever come to fruition.
Mr Kinnocks speech at The Labour Conference highlighted was to me then and still is THE seminal political speech of the mid 1980s. And for that and that alone he is deserving of profound respect. The present Labour Party needs still to have a serious look at itself and relearn the same lessons AGAIN . The lack of calibre of many of its high profile figures ( and others ) and quite frankly its current tranche of female MPs ( Angela Raynor , Dawn Butler , Emily Thornberry and lately Lisa Nandy et all , frankly I could go on and on ) is truly shocking . An insult to the Giants of previous eras from within Labour Ranks who did so much to improve the lot of working class people over the generations. Message to Keir Starmer ( I ain't calling you Sir ) either stop it and improve drastically including growing a pair to get rid of the muppets around you , STOP the WOKE CRAP ( trust me working class people view it all with utter disdain) or just pack up and give somebody else a chance. Ban Thornberry from ever appearing again on TV on behalf of The Party and find some way somehow of sacking Raynor. That'd do as at least a starter for ten !!!!!!!
Two-thirds of the conference rose in condemnation of Kinnock's speech, according to Tony Mulhearn, but based on what I've seen of the conference footage, it looks more like a clear majority was in support of Kinnock's speech. Is that the same impression the rest of you have?
I have exactly the same impression.
Morgan Rigg You're absolutely right. The Militant Tendency are a thoroughly nasty bunch who have no qualms about distorting the truth to suit themselves.
Yes I had the same impression too.
If I recall correctly, Steve Richards described it as half and half, although that's probably more a figure of speech than anything. A lot of our impression is based on where the producers choose to point their cameras, but it certainly seems like anyone who says that 2/3 were standing to condemn Kinnock is either a fool or a liar.
Thanks for the post but... Thatcherite Scot? Urgh! What a strange creature indeed.
There is a particular facet of human nature that is utterly disgusting....not choosing someone just because they aren't "packaged" right. So what if Kinnock liked to dance and sing, people who were the swing voters would chose someone they disagreed with more (Thatcher) just because she acted more "dignified" even though they might still think Kinnock had their interests more in mind? It tells you why we get such bad leaders, because the vast majority of voters want their ears tickled and flash over those who would be the best qualified but not as flashy and packaged.
They chose Thatcher because Kinnock was a dick with no policies and the people voted for her policies 3 times.
It had nothing to do with packaging. I and others voted against him because he was an emotional fool.
Look at the speeches that he made - all emotional drivel, no substance, no policies.
We could see that he was not fit to run the nation.
One other fact that they don't report in this program - he was a violent bully and was in the news more than once for assaulting people.
David Elliott 44%-the same amount as Hitler got in Germany....Funny how you forget that, moron. In real democracies, governments that get less than 50% of the vote have to form a coalition.
I remember watching live on TV Neil Kinnoch's speech about taxis scuttling around with redundancy notices, and the cameras panning around the hall. And I have seen the video several times over the years and I'm stunned that Tony Mulhearn can try to claim that around two-thirds of the audience were against Kinnoch and gave overwhelming support to the Liverpool Council. That is just total bollocks. While they clearly did have quite a few supports in the hall it was certainly a relatively small minority. Either Mulhearn is doing the "if you going to tell a lie, tell a big one" or he is delusional. I note he is a big Corbyn backer; now how unsurprised should I be! Derek Twatton - another Corbyn supporter - is now an international property developer and quite the wealthy capitalist. He is the classic "man to pig and pig to man".
The Liverpool council was standing up to Thatcher's cuts and Kinnock, as he admits himself in this documentary, saw it as a political opportunity to denounce them to make him look like a moderate.
This is true.
I recall Kinnock implying that those who didn't vote Labour were mean spirited and almost mentally ill.
2:55 You might regret saying that 34 years down the line Kinnock.
Bloviating over-emoting from the unprincipled windbag as usual. Though he's only correct so far in terms of the England + Wales results, as the 168 seats remains a postwar low for Labour.
Bennites/Corbynites were born to oppose, mired in their own importance-leaving the rest of us to suffer perpetual Tory rule-Kinnock was far braver than Benn or Corbyn could ever hope to be-anyone can play to their own gallery but it takes real courage to reach out for the sake of the wider electorate
Well said.
33:50 NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
In the words of Roy hattersley, a labour grandee, if tony ben and the left had been correct Maggie thatcher would never have been elected
Denis Healey said that in the first episode of this series.
Is the music at the beginning anything in particular? Or just a theme composed for the series?
It’s beautiful isn’t it
3708 when the O fell out of work!
I'm an American, and at about the 38:00 mark, I recognize that the party conference is singing to the tune of what is clearly 'Stars and Stripes Forever'. Anyone here have any idea what rendition that is or what lyrics are being sung?
I can tell you what the lyrics are
HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO! all to the tune of Stars and Stripes Forever.
i like kinnock
Me, too. It's rare to see a politician being so self-critical and modest. He has no need to be, in my view. He is a decent, generous-spirited man who improved the fortunes of the Labour party - slowly, but surely. Without his efforts, Labour would have remained a self-indulgent protest movement and never regained power and with it the chance to improve people's lives.
You're wrong Baron Kinnock; you lost because you abandoned your socialist principles. If History teaches us anything is that you should never compromise on your principles. Long live Tony Benn a thousand times!
Rubbish - on June the 9th 1983 the British public resoundingly rejected a manifesto devised by Benn and full of Benn's policies. Do not blame the Thatcher victory on the Falklands - that explains the fact, not the scale of Labour's defeat. The scale of Labour's defeat was chiefly Benn's making.
Frederick Cowell
That election showed that people from Britain love double digit unemployment.
Frederick Cowell
Labour could have promised an end to taxes and unlimited free beer and sex to the electorate and lost the 1983 election. Cut the disingenuousness, would you?
There is no legitimate socialist party in power in Europe. Sure, you have Parti Socialiste, the S&D, and the "Socialists International" but they've defacto embraced the free market. The world really has gone to to the right, and parties either adapt or die.
Those union heads look like gangsters.
All ways fat, pompous and out of touch. Unions are great but leaders often terrible.
Dereck Hatton and Mulhern never really got it did they.
A Thatcher - Kinnock battle in the 1992 general election would have been fascinating to watch (in a morbid way). Whoever was the least unpopular at the time would have scraped a narrow victory. I suspect it would have resulted in a single seat majority either way despite the opinion polls saying Kinnock would have romped home.
I always said that Thatcher v Kinnock 1992, would have resulted in a
Kinnock government with a 15 majority, Thatcher was getting well unpopular (Poll tax, Europe etc). Major won in 1992 simply because he was not Thatcher.
It would have been interesting. A lot of voters probably would have stayed home in disgust. Not sure how that would have affected the outcome.
I think Kinnock could have edged it, barely, if he had held a late night rally the day before the election and done at least 20 "We're Alrights", to thunderous applause.
What defeatists Kinnock and Hattersely were, they, the Miners, were never just heading straight into disaster nor, in response to Hattersely comments saying Labour should have condemned the 'Scargill decision', it was not Scargill decision to close 20 pits and lose 20,000 jobs and nor was it his decision to take industrial action, it was agreed by the NUM delegate conference, moreover, the Miners would have won the dispute if the Notts miners along with South Derbyshire and Leicestershire had joined the strike action, and when NACODS almost pulled the plug on the dispute, the Miners were very close to victory, it was never an inevitable defeat...
The sinister face of Gerald Kaufman
The call by the far-Left (or hard Left, whichever you prefer) to “expel the Tories” is amusing when one considers that just a few years before, the far-Left was battling opposing factions of the Labour Party while their opponents were calling for them to direct their efforts against the Conservatives. Fast forward to the mid-80s and all of a sudden, the far-Left was calling for unity and for Labour to direct their efforts against the Tories. Funny, isn't it?
I'm an outsider looking in here and feel free to correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me, looking at this part and the other 2 parts before, the Labour party doesn't know what its looking for, especially in the leadership department. They're supposed to be a party fighting for the working class and such but when Neil Kinnock is in charge, they say he's too much like the folks they are representing, didn't want Healy because one guy says he's a thug, another guy says he's too jovial and another guy say he can't suffer fools gladly, Foot rather want to be right than Prime Minister, Benn looks like a guy who wants to be in charge but the way he does thing makes more enemies than allies and the guys Labour wants is a guy who looks like a banker or a lawyer...both aren't exactly working class, aren't they?
We should have made Glenys leader! She was awesome 😏.
Kinnock couldn't win an election to save his life could he!
Only when he joined the EU Commission did he realize that he didn't need to. For him, dictatorship tops democracy.
Quite a lot of Miners voted Conservative in the 1980's!!
As Benn says, the Conference was becoming a US style Convention. Blair continued from Kinnock and made the party even more autocratic. Only now is democracy being brought back. I hope I won't see that reversed in the next two years.
Yeah those choices by conference led to the 1983 disaster. Death by democracy by the Labour Party.
are you in government right now and making change and decisions are you.
Kinnock sold out. Labour became Tory Lite and Blair carried it on. By then Labour had sold its soul for power.
History would of been different for Labour if Gaitskell hadn't died in 1963 and became PM the following year. The last real Labour leader.
And guess what if you don't sellout which I disagree - You call it "sellout", I call it "compromise", the one who suffers is not the metropolitan Len McClusky / Jon Lansman sort of Corbynistas, but the real people who are desperate of a Labour government.
But they were unelectable.
1:30 "Our standing in the polls at that time was 24%". History repeating.
harmlessdrudge1986 what about now?
What about now? xD
I think it's to the tune of "O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree."
I don't buy the public rejecting Kinnock because of his working-class Wesh roots. David Lloyd George was the most successful politician of his generation, one that was far more class-conscious.
Perhaps, but that was a different time; it's hard to imagine someone coming up in those circumstances now (it's hard to even imagine someone following the leave school, go to work, climb the ladder model of more recent examples like Callaghan and Major).
Has nobody noticed that Kinnock is singing with Lance Corporal Jones?
I noticed he was singing with Compo.
The Labour party grew out of the Trades Union movement (and the Methodist church). As soon as they broke the links with unions they were finished.
Thatcher was no fool. She knew that if she broke and then destroyed the Unions, that would finish the Labour party. A lot of her administration was designed to do just that (which is why she said that her 'proudest achievement' was 'Tony Blair and New Labour').
Listen to any Blarite MP's and you realise Thatcher won....
Bryan Gould is wrong as to why people didn't take to Kinnock, he's a man who'll use 30 words when two will do. And that sounds like someone who doesn't really know what he's talking about. To quote Ronald Reagan: "if you're explaining you're losing"
I presume you mean that Kinnock is a man who'll use 30 words... in which case I tend to agree from the interviews I've heard. Great orator, real passion, but when he gets going he can be very boring to listen to at length.
This like one long Spitting Image episode…lol
I much prefer "Land of Hope and Glory" than the travesty of "The Red Flag." Whenever I think of a Red Flag, I think of the flag of the former USSR. Margaret Thatcher said, in a speech that is on this channel, that underneath the re branding of Labour's platform was still the same old socialism.
That’s your misinterpretation
Watching this reminds just what a self-righteous, sanctimonious prig Tony Benn was. Were it not for Kinnock's reforms and changes to the Labour Party then New Labour's victory in 1997 would have never happened. Kinnock did the spade work for Blair to come later.
John Smith would have won in 1997 without the excesses of New Labour
@@briandelaney9710 What excesses would those have been?
@@npe1 Autocratic control of the party by the leadership , removal of any semblance of socialist policies. Mandelson saying that people should not feel guilty for getting filthy rich and the complaisance about the gap between the rich and poor
If a right winger like Roy Hattersley didn’t have a good word to say about New Labour , it makes you think
Ahh, the beginning of New Labour's style over substance, spin, spin, spin. Can't show Kinnock sipping a beer. I guess you can't blame em, when you've decided not to have any ideology or policies of your own, what separates you from the tories? The politics of personality of course.
That is what Blair was so good at as Opposition Leader- he marketed New Labour as some hipster "left wing" ideology when in fact it wasn't. The Labour Party in the 1990s went in the direction of burying real ideological discourse which has unfortunately allowed low-grade career politicians to riddle the majority of the PLP in the present day.
BRILLIANT comment
Jeremy Leatherman ah yes you’re one of those that think the Labour government of 1997-2010 was the complete same as the Tories. How wrong could you be.
@@alexmeechan15 that labour government was the greatest party under Blair in it's time
how interesting that the Tories rn have led a truly symbolic government, one of the most incompetent in recent history.
Always found that "first Kinnock in a thousand generations" (i.e. 30,000 years) to go to university absurd. His own university, Cardiff, was founded 100 years before.
Yes, probably. Even 100 generations would be 3,000 years ago, so would be start of Iron Age.
I was going to explain to you and then I thought.... why do that to an ignorant, Little England Tory.
Marco Di Franco lol i was thinking that as well!
Marco Di Franco he probably meant a thousand years of kinnocks, that would get him pretty close to the first modern universities
lol!! Poetic license afforded by brilliant oratory.
Chris Mullin comes across in his later diaries as a ghastly curmudgeon, forever attacking "barbarians" and "feral youths" in a most un-socialist manner. He then attacks 'benefit culture' while never showing any idea how to get rid of benefit culture.
In this, however (admittedly in 1995 before perhaps he matured) he should have shown recognition that where the miners were balloted they rejected the strike, and they only came out because Scargill called them out. Scargill did not call them out to get any improvement in wages or conditions, he did so to topple the government. Maybe in 1974 that worked, by 1985 people realised that was illegitimate. If Mullin wants anyone to blame for the collapse of working class dignity in the 80s and 90s, he should stop blaming Thatcher, and look to Scargill (now safely ensconced in his NUM funded Barbican flat).
Having watched this series several times, I realise now that the world wouldn't want a Labour party led by Benn because it would have broken the global order of things. He was let down by advertising himself as a socialist and ennabling scaremongering about a Soviet takeover, whereas he would've been the last man that the Soviets would've wanted as prime minister of Britain.
The miners strike was our equivalent of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, in the sense that in both cases each country could pursue radical policies without Communist association.
In a neutral sense it could also be compared to Germany in the 1930s, where they attempted a clean break from the international financial system. Not that I would compare Benn to Hitler per se, the former would be far too dignified to be stood next to mister toothbrush.
40:10 Tony Benn at his Best!!
So...according to this documentary, Labour prefer their PM to be boring. I mean, in a part before, they mentioned that they wouldn't want Healey to be PM because of him being open and goofy and then they didn't want Kinnock too. It's not like Old Labour had a penchant for average boring guys..look at Harold Wilson. That man oozes charisma. Tell me, people of the UK, to an outsider (from a country that was once a colony of yours..and no, not America) what do you think a Labour leader should be?
SMAXZO a true Labour man, but at the same time someone that can inspire both activists and general voters (eg: Tony Benn)
Gosh, that must have taken you months to come up with that insightful political thought Shahid. I guess the Mirror Group, and the off shore owned and tax avoiding Guardian are doing fantastic business.
Tell me, did you get you get all that from the book 101 Political Cliches, or are you Owen Jones ghost writer?
Unfortunately he was not prime minister material
I’ll never know why someone would vote Labour, when you could be a Tory🇬🇧
Evil thatcher.
Interesting that the narrator said, at the end of the program, that Kinnock had to move Labour “further to the right”. A more accurate description, surely, would be, “further to the centre”. Nobody would have described the 1987 British Labour Party as remotely right or even centrist.
"The emphasis was on packaging; policy could be left to another day" And this is why I detest the right of the Labour party. It just seems like an opportunistic game to them and to think they had the audacity to demonize Militant and nowadays Momentum!
There are exceptions of course. Prescott is a lad!
What is clear is Tony Benn is not even close to what Corbyn is today, Corbyn is a new type of leader and politician, Benn was nothing more than a snob
Jerome, what direction do you think the Labour party should now head in? I can not believe Corbyn didn't have the decency to resign the morning after a catastrophic night for the Labour party. Corbyn ultimately came with too much baggage, his IRA connections, his lack of leadership and his ideological blind spots to abhorrent regimes around the world which are on the left. I'm struggling to see what positives he has bought to the party?
Michael Foot and Corbyn may have both been on the left, but at least Foot came across as an intelligent, decent man with the ability to compromise on some issues. Corbyn has displayed none of these qualities.
All think they could be in charge but cannot run a bath let alone a country. All not as smart as they think they are and I vote labour.
The right of the Labour could never accept a leader from the Left wing. What is then "democracy" for the right of the Labour ?
Fast forward look at the money Peter Mandelson. And Tony Blair have acquired in party politics nothing has changed.
Kinnock was more exiting than engaging
His style was way too
Idiosyncratic
bbc
Labour is SOOO boring! At least the Tories are interesting