"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. And I warn you not to grow old."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomHumanistsAgnosticsLabour Party (UK) politiciansPoliticians from Wales
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock, PC (born 28 March 1942) is a British politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1983 until 1992, and Vice-President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.
37 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Neil Kinnock →
Related Quotes
"When I started to encounter Marxism at 16, the elementary truths of the surplus value theory and more than anything e…"
"We support the efforts to keep the pits open until exhausted."
"I don't believe that the policies on which we fought the [1983] election ought to be ejected like some sort of spent …"
"I didn't come to it intellectually, I came to it pragmatically. What intellectual appeal there was came initially ent…"
"Someone up there likes me."
"If anyone wants to know why we must conduct ourselves [with commonsense and realism], just remember at all times, wit…"
"Heckler: At least Mrs Thatcher has got guts. Neil Kinnock: It's a pity that other people had to leave theirs on the g…"
"The roots of defeat which were put down by some of the elements of our party in the two or three years after 1980 mad…"
"By emphatically pressing the view that it is only possible to support radical Labour policies by supporting Tony Benn…"
"[Margaret Thatcher is a] stubborn Salome who wants the miners' heads on a plate."