Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations…
Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.
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Speech at the Welsh Labour Party conference, Llandudno, 15 May 1987.. This speech was extensively quoted in a Labour Party election broadcast during the 1987 general election. It was also famously used without attribution by U.S. Senator Joe Biden, although Biden had used and properly attributed the speech many times before.
Other Neil Kinnock Quotes
- Heckler: At least Mrs Thatcher has got guts.
Neil Kinnock: It’s a pity that other people had to leave theirs on the ground at Goose Green to prove it. - View Quote Details on Heckler: At least Mrs Thatcher has got guts.
Neil Kinnock: It’s… - What has happened is that there are people who, for reasons best known to themselves, have voted for maintaining division in our country. - View Quote Details on What has happened is that there are people who, for…
- By emphatically pressing the view that it is only possible to support radical Labour policies by supporting Tony Benn, Tony’s associates have turned the contest into a gamble with policies, [yet any] disagreement with those claims has been slandered as ‘opportunism’, ‘careerism’ and evidence of every kind of departure from socialist conviction and purpose. That is the truly dangerous product of these months of contest. - View Quote Details on By emphatically pressing the view that it is only possible…
- We believe there should be reforms in the EEC which would benefit all the members. If these were not achieved, our policy is to preserve the ultimate option of withdrawing Britain. That option would not, this time, need a referendum, as it did before. - View Quote Details on We believe there should be reforms in the EEC which…
- 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. - View Quote Details on If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday,…
- The roots of defeat which were put down by some of the elements of our party in the two or three years after 1980 made victory difficult to achieve. - View Quote Details on The roots of defeat which were put down by some…
- David Frost: If you haven’t got nuclear weapons, the choice in that situation would be to subject your forces to an unfair battle.
Neil Kinnock: Yes, what you’re suggesting is that the alternatives are between the gesture, the threat, or the use of nuclear weapons, and surrender. In these circumstances the choice is posed, and this is a classical choice, between exterminating everything you stand for and the flower of your youth, or using all the resources you have to make any occupation totally untenable. - View Quote Details on David Frost: If you haven’t got nuclear weapons, the choice… - The army of brokers, jobbers and other quaintly named parasites. - View Quote Details on The army of brokers, jobbers and other quaintly named parasites.
- I don’t believe that the policies on which we fought the [1983] election ought to be ejected like some sort of spent cartridge. - View Quote Details on I don’t believe that the policies on which we fought…
- We must not look for some kind of Messiah. - View Quote Details on We must not look for some kind of Messiah.
Let’s see, 1,000 generations, equals approximately 25,000 years. And the oldest universities are less than 1,000 years old. It’s terrible how they let innumerate people into universities these days.