THE KINNOCKS AND THE PUBLIC TIT

LIKE THE MANY THOUSANDS OF OTHER recidivist benefit claimants who have managed to steer clear of a proper job in the private sector, the Kinnocks have spent their working lives sticking limpet like to the hull of the state. Whether here or in Europe, the ex-leader of the Labour Party has never had to weather the inclement environment of the wealth creating sector. When he gave up his leadership of the Labour Party, the word went out that to the effect that “something must be done for Neil”: and so it turned out, when in 1995 he became a European Commissioner no less, on a basic salary of €20,000 per month (£13,000). As European Commissioner for Administrative Reform, he put paid to a whistle blower who was intent upon exposing the expense fiddling and nonexistent financial controls that was eating away at the EU’s credibility 

            On leaving this lucrative position after nine years, he of course received the generous and obligatory final salary pension which is a common feature of the public sector in all its many forms. After he left the Commissariat, he found himself (or friends appointed him to) running a quango from the 4^th February 2004; this went by the name of the British Council. The British Council, by the time Neil stepped forth was only paying expenses - although his predecessor and friend, the lawyer  Helena Kennedy, received, according to Hansard in 2004, £35,000 prior to Neil’s appointment. However the great man obliged the nation once more with his talents and served without Ms Kennedy’s stipend, along with the added gift of his son at the British Council.

           

KINNOCK WAS LABOUR LEADER from 1983-1992. There were three memorable moments to his leadership of the Party. The first occurred just after he won the leadership, when finding himself with his wife Glennys  on the Brighton shoreline in what was meant to convey a man of destiny moment, he fell over and got drenched by an incoming wave. This was captured by the media (as he had no doubt intended it to be) and he never fully recovered from this, his first of many faux pas while serving as leader.

            However, the next memorable moment was much kinder to him, and as a result made the Labour Party electable again and put him in the party’s debt. This was what was to be known as his St. Swithin’s Day speech at the Labour Party conference in 1985.

            For years the Militant Tendency had sought to take over the Labour Party. It was a Trotskyite organisation based in Liverpool and its leader was also the leader of Liverpool City council. Derek Hatton played right into Kinnock’s hands and his organisation, as well its many sympathizers on the Left of the Labour Party were routed. The speech was a bravura performance and should have given him the premiership of our nation.

            However, saving as he did the Labour Party as an electoral force, was to represent the full extent of Kinnock’s political progress in British politics.

            At the 1992 General Election, Kinnock grabbed defeat from what could have been the jaws of victory. The event that put paid to the Welsh windbag took place in Sheffield, just hours before polling day. The Sheffield Rally was meant to put the icing on the cake of the campaign that Labour felt they were about to win, be it narrowly. However, it seems the expectation of holding the highest position in the land went to Kinnock’s head.

            I was a staunch Labour supporter at the time, and I remember standing in my kitchen filled with great despondency, as I heard the radio broadcast passages from Kinnock’s eve of poll address in Sheffield. I went into my living room and gloomily announced to my brother that Kinnock had blown the election. Later that night we watched and cringed, as the welsh windbag fully justified the moniker that we, up until this moment, had felt aggrieved at.

            Rather than a statesman, we beheld a fair-ground barker. He stood alone at the lectern on that night, roaring like a football hooligan who had seen his side win the Champions League; while behind him stood his future cabinet wishing the floor would open up under them.

            Yet this man went on to accumulate a publicly funded nest egg, from the public (i.e. through the private sector). On top of which Glennys became a Euro MP and also has a handy retirement package to add to her husband’s.

           

THE KINNOCKS have never competed for anything. It is true that Neil did so when standing for the leadership of the Labour Party. But was it really such a formidable task after being seen as a Left of centre candidate with a history within the party?

            The Trade Unions were brought on board; especially after the 1983 election when the party delivered what was to be known as the longest suicide note in history.

            I remember poor old Michael Foot humiliating himself at the time. He came to speak in my constituency and made for grim listening. He was a an outstanding scholar; and had served as a minister. But he was no leader of a party competing for power.

            After the 1983 general election, the party itself began to have the stirrings of enlightenment, that would give us Neil Kinnock – but more importantly, one Tony Blair.

            Neil Kinnock will turn out to be a mere footnote in Labour history. He was kept in work by the old boy network, and paid, by most people’s standards, handsomely, by various public bodies.

            Blair felt he owed Kinnock and made sure that he would not suffer the embarrassment of the dole queue. Being a natural supporter of the public sector, Neil Kinnock became one of its most successful beneficiaries.