In short
The News Agents Podcast Episode Summary
Episode Information
- Title: Neil Kinnock on the speech that changed the Labour Party
- Podcast Hosts: Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel, Lewis Goodall
- Description: Lewis Goodall interviews Neil Kinnock to reflect on his influential 1985 Labour Conference speech, discussing leadership, political courage, and the future of the Labour Party.
Key Themes and Discussions
Historical Context of Kinnock's Speech
- Date of Speech: October 1, 1985, at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.
- Significance: Kinnock's speech marked a pivotal moment in his leadership, directly addressing the "militant tendency" within the Labour Party, which had gained control of Liverpool City Council.
- Militant Tendency: A left-wing Trotskyist group that sought to infiltrate the Labour Party, advocating for radical policies including nationalization of major corporations and significant pay increases, which led to chaos in local governance.
Kinnock's Reflections on Leadership
- Political Courage: Kinnock emphasized the importance of taking risks as a leader, particularly in the face of internal dissent within the Labour Party.
- Response to Militancy: He described the challenges posed by the militant faction and the need for a strong stance to protect the Labour Party's reputation.
- Audience Reaction: Kinnock recalls being surprised by the enthusiastic response from the audience during his speech.
The Impact of Kinnock's Speech
- Turning Point: Kinnock's address is considered a crucial moment that helped reclaim the Labour Party's identity and move away from the extremes represented by the militant faction.
- Long-term Effects: Despite the speech's immediate impact, Kinnock acknowledged that the Labour Party still faced challenges, requiring further efforts to secure electoral success.
Contemporary Reflections
- Parallels in Modern Politics: Kinnock discussed similarities between the current political landscape and the past, particularly regarding divisions within political parties—highlighting the disciplined nature of right-wing politics compared to the left's fragmentation.
- Current Labour Leadership: Kinnock praised Keir Starmer's recent conference speech, indicating a positive direction for the party while cautioning that it must address the needs and grievances of the electorate genuinely.
Key Quotes
- On Political Promises: "You start with far-fetched resolutions... and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council."
- On Leadership Risks: "In a sense, to lead is to take risks."
- On the Nature of Politics: "Only people with shallow convictions are afraid of compromise."
Conclusion Neil Kinnock's reflections provide valuable insights into the dynamics of political leadership, the impact of rhetoric, and the ever-evolving landscape of party politics within the UK. His experiences and observations remain relevant as current political figures navigate similar challenges.
Additional Resources
- Podcast Website: [The News Agents](https://www.thenewsagents.co.uk/)
- Listen on Alexa: "Alexa, ask Global Player to play The News Agents"
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Lewis Goodall:This is a Global Player original podcast.
0:05Neil Kinnock:I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They're then pickled into a rigid dogma, a cold. And you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council, a Labour council hiring taxis to scuttle round the city, handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
0:41Lewis Goodall:That is the unmistakable voice and cadence of Neil Kinnock and a bit of the unmistakable, unforgettable speech he made 40 years ago this month at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth on the 1st of October 1985. He was taking on, in the most visceral, explicit public terms, the militant tendency, a left-wing, Trotskyist organisation which had infiltrated parts of the Labour Party, including taking control of Liverpool City Council. It was a glittering highlight of Kinnock's leadership, a turning point if not for his quest to become Prime Minister, then certainly in the slow grind of taking the party back to government.
1:28Lewis Goodall:It has entered political and speech-making law, beloved of the right of the Labour Party, reviled by the left. It is perhaps the most famous conference speech ever given. Up there alongside Margaret Thatcher's Lady Is Not For Turning, given a few years before, or her reaction to the Brighton bomb only a year before. As the Great Britain-wide party conferences draw to an end, we thought what better moment to bring the man himself now in his 83rd year into the newsagent's studio to reflect on a lost, perhaps more heroic political world, a lost style of political oratory and a lost moment in his life which still lights up the political stage.
2:14Lewis Goodall:And most of all, what it might yet teach us of the battles to come. Welcome to the Newsagents.
2:24Lewis Goodall:The News Agents. Neil, welcome back. Neil Kinnock. Nice to be here. Back to the News Agents studio. For this very specific reason, which is, as I say, it's 40 years on from that speech, which has become perhaps the most famous speech, certainly one of the most famous political speeches of the modern age, certainly the most famous conference speech, I think. Does it feel like yesterday?
2:44Neil Kinnock:Sometimes it does. Though, thank God it wasn't. but it's very very difficult to think of it in terms of four decades 40 years because you wonder what's happened in the intervening period there's going to be loads and loads of listeners to this
3:01Lewis Goodall:who don't remember i mean i wasn't alive i'm very familiar with the events obviously read lots about it watched the speech many times can you just give a sense of the kind of background to it in the years before. For a start, could you just explain what militant was? I'll try to.
3:20Neil Kinnock:From the 1960s, under the guidance of a man called Ted Grant, who was a South African, formerly a member of the South African Communist Party, but somebody who embraced the idea of Trotskyism, the teaching and ideology of Lev Bronstein, whose revolutionary name was Leon Trotsky.
3:45Lewis Goodall:One of the great figures of the Russian Revolution.
3:47Neil Kinnock:Yeah, he founded the Red Army. And it turned out that he was a strategic genius. But he was much too assertive and prominent so that after Lenin died in 1921, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Stalin decided that he was an enemy of the revolution and he had to flee and they eventually murdered him in Mexico. He went into hiding in Brazil. Well, in Mexico. And he was murdered in Mexico City. People who embrace his ideology consider that the future of the proletariat lies with permanent revolution that will secure utter transformation in all the economic and political relationships.
4:38Neil Kinnock:For Ted Grant, that meant when he moved to Britain, that the best way to develop the changes that he supported as an outfit called, I think I remember, the Revolutionary Socialist League was to infiltrate the Labour Party. So basically infiltrate it, take it over and then make it a radical revolutionary party. Yeah, for the very simple reason that the Labour Party was by far the largest mass party capable of representing the industrial working class. So that policy of infiltration, of entriism, which was the tactic they adopted, became more developed. They were never a very big organisation, though there was a time by the late 70s, early 80s, where they had probably a thousand full time employees.
5:37Neil Kinnock:Some of them devoted to selling their weekly newspaper, Militant, and others dedicated to organisation.
5:47Lewis Goodall:So Militant was initially the name of their newspaper, but they were basically a secret organisation.
5:54Neil Kinnock:Yes, well, covered certainly, because they operated at two levels. The one was as a newspaper that tried to sell itself and its ideas inside the Labour movement, broadly trade unions and the Labour Party, and what would generally be thought of the left inclined part of the general population. And what did they want? They wanted nationalisation of the top 50 corporations. They said monopolies, but corporations. A living wage that was roughly double what the average income was. And effectively, the sequestering, the takeover of much private property.
6:46Lewis Goodall:So they were this secret or semi-secret organisation. They were dedicated to entryism, to taking over the Labour Party on the ultra left of the party. But they weren't just a sort of tiny, small kind of sort of outfit as there have been so many kind of through the history of the Labour Party. By the time you get to the early 80s, when you're leader after 1983, the 1983 general election, they have an MP or they have a couple of MPs and they have basically taken over Liverpool City Council.
7:17Neil Kinnock:Yes.
7:18Lewis Goodall:Why were they so strong in Liverpool?
7:19Neil Kinnock:Well, they had decided because a Liverpoolian guy called Peter Taff, very bright, very persuasive, was a dedicated supporter of Ted Grant and the Revolutionary Socialist League. they developed their organisation, particularly in Liverpool. They were headquartered in London, but they developed particularly in Liverpool, which is a city, a swirling city, a port city, with a racetrack, with all of the effects of de-industrialisation on a very rapid and gigantic scale. So people were rightly, justifiably, utterly brassed off with the existing order.
8:01Lewis Goodall:And you have the Thatcher government, which is in place at the time, with a radical economic programme.
8:06Neil Kinnock:Historically, in any case, Liverpool has been a city prone to sectarianism. Yes. Throughout history, Protestant and Catholic, but that had faded. That wasn't the problem, but it was a city that had been run by tendencies, groups, sometimes on the right of the Labour Party, sometimes liberals. sometimes on the left of the Labour Party and a city that had been run with reasonable efficiency but always with a vested interest grouping in charge. I think often that Militant was simply the latest in a whole series of cadres, of groupings, of ideologically motivated, organised groups wanting to take over the civic governance system.
9:03Lewis Goodall:And what militant and other left-wing groups were able to do, entryist groups that were able to do at that time, was to take advantage of the fact that in places like Liverpool, but other places as well, places like Bermondsey and others, where local Labour parties had been allowed to, well, they were sort of run to keep people out. You know, they were very small. They were dominated by the old guard of the Labour Party. They didn't actually want new members.
9:26Neil Kinnock:I could have taken you to people who would say when they applied to join the Labour Party, simply out of political enthusiasm, I'm sorry, we're full up.
9:36Lewis Goodall:Because those local parties didn't want new people. Because they could run it in their own way. That's right. And so actually, these groups actually found it easy to take over these places because the actual local Labour Party had atrophied and decayed. Absolutely.
9:50Neil Kinnock:I heard Ken Livingstone giving a talk once. He wasn't militant, of course.
9:54Lewis Goodall:But he was on the left of the party.
9:55Neil Kinnock:Well, there were 57 varieties of ultra-left in London, known, generally speaking, as the loony London left. But Ken was very popular in some quarters, and I heard him giving a talk to the Campaign for Liberal Party Democracy, explaining the numbers theory. and he said really all you need to do in a ward where it's usual for six people to turn up regularly is get seven people to turn up and you can be a candidate for the council and in a safe labour ward get elected now my point is it was said with a degree of cynicism
10:34Lewis Goodall:but it was true uh it's just politics yeah sure and i wasn't shocked i was appalled but not shocked if you know what I mean. And your leader, 1983, military in control of Liverpool Council, what are they doing? What makes them unusual in Liverpool?
10:52Neil Kinnock:Unusual to the extent that they were taking the strategy of protest and disobedience to the government that bit further than some other councils were doing. I spoke of something called the dented shield, which was a defence of those councils that were sailing close to the wind in terms of their budgets, but nevertheless acting within the law in order to stay in office, not be barred from office, to protect the communities that they represented. In Liverpool, militant were going that bit further by defying the government. They actually got away with it one year.
11:38Lewis Goodall:In 1984?
11:39Neil Kinnock:in 1983. But when 1984 came and the 84-85 financial year, they said that there were no circumstances in which they would try to fix a legal budget
11:56Lewis Goodall:within the limits set by the government. So to be clear, what was happening is the Conservative government, the Thatcher government, were setting budgets and in Liverpool's case, they were in militant control of them, they were basically refusing to adhere to those budgets. They were basically setting illegal budgets and basically daring the government to take them on. That's right.
12:19Neil Kinnock:And they extended that over a period of several months, coming to the conclusion eventually, they say, as a tactic, that they would declare 30 ,000 of their staff redundant as a way of embarrassing the government into providing them with additional funds. But of course, that did mean that literally, in the phrase that I used, they were sending taxis scuttling around the city, handing out redundancy notices to their own workers.
12:51Lewis Goodall:Well, let's listen to... That's probably the most famous part of the speech, and it's the bit that still excites people in a way to this day. Let's just listen to what you said about that specific point.
13:01Neil Kinnock:I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a cold. And you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs. And you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour Council, a Labour Council, hiring taxis to scuttle around the city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
13:49Neil Kinnock:I'm telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling the short-term egos, I tell
14:05Neil Kinnock:I'm telling you, you can't play politics with people's jobs and with people's services.
14:15Lewis Goodall:What do you think when you watch that back now, 40 years on?
14:17Neil Kinnock:I wish I hadn't had to do it. That was the feeling I had when I actually made it. But in a sense, of course, that was the easy part, denouncing them. There then followed eight months, I think, of evidence gathering and of examination of effectively non-legal trial, abiding by the rules of natural justice, where we heard the case of people that I would eventually propose for expulsion.
14:47Lewis Goodall:But to be clear, just on that point of the taxi thing, because I'm sure particularly to young listeners will sound really odd in a way and younger viewers. That's what the council were doing. They were literally because I think. And is it right because? And they terrified people. Because the public sector unions wouldn't actually hand out the notices themselves. That's right. Postal workers. Yes, right.
Read the full transcript
15:07Neil Kinnock:The General Municipal and Boilermakers Union and the National Public Employees said, we're not going to take these redundancy notices around in order to fulfil your tactical fooling about.
15:21Lewis Goodall:Because what they were doing, and it goes back to when you mentioned Trotsky, without getting too sort of abstract, one of Trotsky's ideas is this idea of transitional demands. So you make demands that are so outrageous. Impossible. Impossible. So the theory goes, basically, we'll prove to the workers that the capitalist system cannot deliver for them And will then lead them to a revolutionary politics.
15:43Neil Kinnock:Yeah, I can give you perfect instances of resolutions passed at constituency level, trade union level, national conference level, that were utterly impractical. The fulfilment of wild ideals, you know, in some ways I could applaud because, you know, theoretically you could see the purpose of it. but were never, ever going to be accepted or implemented by the Labour Party or the Labour leadership, including me. So then the next thing for the would-be revolutionary to do is to accuse me and the leadership of the party of betrayal, of treachery. So the ultra-left would be succeeding in getting prominence for its proposals, its impossible proposals, and then because rational, sensible democratic socialists wouldn't have anything to do with the proposals that they were completely selling out to the capitalist class and betraying the interests of the proletariat.
16:48Neil Kinnock:It was pantomime time.
16:50Lewis Goodall:And in order to satisfy that, as you say, they were willing to make a lot of people redundant. Oh, sure.
16:57Neil Kinnock:I mean, they insist. they still are insisting, those who survive, that it was only a tactic. It was only to dramatise their condition. They never would have fulfilled the redundancies. But the thing is, they jammed themselves into a corner where if the government didn't provide supplementary funding, and they wouldn't, then they were going to be stuck with redundancy notices that were made valid by the fiscal circumstances. And how long had you been considering before making the speech, taking it on? Oh, quite a long time. I would have done it the year before, but 1984, at the time of conference, we were halfway through the minus strike.
17:41Neil Kinnock:and the Labour movement, understandably, was utterly preoccupied with the strike, the merits or demerits of the strike, the offences against civil rights taking place in the policing of the strike, the consequences for mining communities which were devastating and nobody would have been listening and even if they had been listening they wouldn't have responded in the way that you heard on the recording. the Labour Party conference audience did respond. Now, I didn't know that they were going to be responding quite as vociferously, quite as enthusiastic. Because you can hear it in the hall. With huge support.
18:22Neil Kinnock:But I knew I had to take the risk. I mean, in a sense, to lead is to take risks. Why did you feel you had to take the risk? Well, because the tactics of militant and some others on the ultra-left, up and down the country, were inflicting dreadful harm on the reputation of the Labour Party. I mean, people, quite sensible people, thoughtful people, were thinking that we were in danger of being taken over if we hadn't already been taken over by a lunatic fringe.
18:56Lewis Goodall:Were people paranoid about it, in the sense of, because of these secret kind of organisations? Were people paranoid about, are you militant, are you not?
19:03Neil Kinnock:I mean, some paranoia is justifiable. I have to say I didn't suffer from it. But there were colleagues in Parliament whose lives were making hellish by the constant nagging and campaigning of militant people and ultra-left people in their constituency. Perfectly good, hard-working, dedicated members of Parliament. people of talent and integrity were under terrible pressure so that they were they hated the idea of their general constituency meetings because they would be under perpetual attack
19:41Lewis Goodall:Were you nervous before making it?
19:44Neil Kinnock:No more than I always was before making speeches I mean that might seem strange to you, I do not like speaking in public No way, but you're amazing you've got to do it well I mean there are lots of boxers who do like boxing and there are football players who get very uptight before going on the field so I mean you do it I mean the only reason that I became leader of the party was because there was nobody else it was duty I had to do it so many had lost their seats in the year's free election I mean it was
20:18Lewis Goodall:utter disaster we'll be back with more from Neil Kinnock just after this
20:27Neil Kinnock:News you can trust and the conversations that matter.
20:30Lewis Goodall:With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff.
20:41Neil Kinnock:Discover how today's story affects your life.
20:44Lewis Goodall:Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app.
20:48Neil Kinnock:LBC, leading Britain's conversation.
20:56Lewis Goodall:The News Agents. Did you know, Neil, it's, as I say, gone down in a sort of law, in political law, particularly...
21:02Neil Kinnock:It's not even the best part of the speech.
21:03Lewis Goodall:No, well, we'll listen to another part of the speech, which I think probably is even better. Did you... Did you think this was make or break for you? Did you have a sense of how momentous this moment was going to be in your leadership? Oh, I knew that if we didn't do it and follow it through with effective expulsions
21:23Neil Kinnock:and the complete transformation, of the party in Liverpool and one or two other places, then we were going to drag around this huge lead weight of being misrepresented and misinterpreted for years and years to come. Because the press were obsessed with it. It had to be done. Is it true you didn't sleep before? Oh, I never did, though. I used to write all my conference speeches and quite a lot of other speeches overnight. I stayed up all night.
21:54Lewis Goodall:What, you wrote it the night before?
21:55Neil Kinnock:Yeah, because of the huge diversity of issues that I had to address as leader of the party anyway, and because I'm a lazy sod, I suppose, I never got round to actually composing the speech in a written form until the night before. So about half past ten, on the Monday night before the Labour Party conference, I would get my team of two or three people together and start to write my conference speech. There was one occasion, 1986, I recall, when Sue Nye, now Baroness Nye, wonderful woman, brought the last two pages of the speech onto the platform after I'd started speaking. That's what they call hitting the deadline.
22:50Lewis Goodall:So your advisors hadn't read through it? No, no, no. Really? No, I mean... Can you imagine, there's probably no conference speech that's been done like that now for decades. It goes through endless focus groups. Tony used to worry through the night,
23:04Neil Kinnock:but he used to get a couple of hours. But he used to worry and rewrite and worry and rewrite, even though he'd arrived at the conference venue with a drafted speech that they'd been putting together, he and his people had been putting together for weeks before, and then he would rewrite and rewrite. And he never got a lot of sleep before his conference speech, but he did get some kip. The thing is, I mean, a serious flaw, amongst many other flaws for me, is I can't use other people's words, you see. So it's all your own words. Yeah, yeah. Even when I was in the European Commission and obviously had official statements to make, and arguments and figures to use.
23:52Neil Kinnock:I would take those from my civil servants. I had great people working in my departments, terrific, from all over the European Union. I would take that, but I would then rewrite them. So much so, there's a guy called Wolfgang Erzner, who was a German civil servant, quite a senior manager by the time he finished, who, when I left the transport portfolio, did Guide for Kinnock Speechrafters. And it's 20 idiotic things, some of which, of course, did reflect my inclinations and tendencies for being infinitive shall not be split. All kinds of things. You're welcome to see it. It's hanging on my office wall.
24:43Lewis Goodall:Could you have one of those for John Sopel?
24:45Neil Kinnock:Well, I'm sure, yes. yes I'll tell you a story about John afterwards I've got a few for you as well when he was very very very young really hard to imagine that but I mean it's daft I've had great people working for me they've drafted speeches which have ended up with other people and they haven't let it change a word and they've done it and people have clapped and it's been very good your speeches are so good
25:14Lewis Goodall:even Joe Biden decided to take them on of course
25:16Neil Kinnock:Yeah, and Gary Hart and a few others. But with attribution, that's the same. Yes, yeah.
25:22Lewis Goodall:How did it feel to deliver? For people who haven't seen it, and people watching this will have watched it, but it's worth going to see, you know, other bits of the speech. I mean, it looks electric. I mean, because obviously you're getting huge support, but you've also got members of Militant, you know, people on Liverpool City Council, Derek Hatton there, he was the deputy leader of Liverpool City Council, very famous figure at the time, screaming at you. You've got Eric Heffer, who was a left-wing Labour MP, storming out, as you say that. Did you notice that? Could you see them? Yeah, I could see Eric getting up out of my fringe vision.
25:54And I thought, because we'd had some previous confrontations,
26:00Neil Kinnock:that he might try to hit me. What, on the stage? Yeah, I mean, he was absolutely raging mad with me. He was absolutely outraged, which is why he walked out. and because of our previous history, I thought he might try to clip me as he goes past. What, live? Like lamp you ran? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was that kind of occasion. So I got my feet in the right position consciously while I was speaking. That was going through your head at that time? Yeah, so if he'd taken a swing at me, he would have missed. Anyway. What would you have done back? Well, it depends on whether he tried again. But anyway, that would...
26:40Neil Kinnock:Lamped him back? Well, yeah. I mean, in order to prevent him from making the same mistake again. But, I mean, it didn't come to that. And it was really flashing across my mind, this silly sod is going to take a swing at me, which he didn't, fortunately. He was much too sensible in the end. But he was completely aflame with anger. And he walked out. I could not believe my luck, as I reflected afterwards. that Hatton and Mulhern and the other ones were standing up and shouting at me. You can't really anticipate what the reception is going to be. Why? Because it made them look frenzied and... It was terrific.
27:25Neil Kinnock:I could say, I'll tell you and you listen, which in a sense, obviously without any form of rehearsal or anything, or anticipation, made the speech, dramatised it. so it got it would have got a lot of notice but it got even more notice than I anticipated
27:46Lewis Goodall:Do you think, I mean as you say, people like Heffer that part of the left, I mean they did come to loathe you, you know viscerally Heffer said to me, and we'd previously been, well
27:59Neil Kinnock:not close comrades but you know friendly he tragically contracted an incurable form cancer and he was dying and the Speaker of the House of Commons put in a reception for him in deference to his record as a parliamentarian. And so, Dennis, my wife and I went and he was there with Doris, his wife, and after three quarters of an hour or so we left. So I went up to Doris to say goodnight to her and she said goodnight and I shook his hand and I said, good night, Eric, all the best. And he said, I wish you were dying instead of me. Which, yeah, the guy was telling me the truth. But that's how bitter things had become.
28:50Lewis Goodall:Right to the end.
28:51Neil Kinnock:Yeah, I mean, I understood what he was saying and how difficult it was for him to handle the reality. I think he lived for about six, seven months after that.
29:02Lewis Goodall:How did that make you feel?
29:04Neil Kinnock:Awful. I mean you can't feel anything but awful when somebody says that to you partly because you are repelled by it. It's a real punch in the middle of the eyes but also you comprehend the grief the desperate grief and I mean if you're an adult certainly if you're an adult with the breadth of engagement that I've had with people of all kinds, you encounter a lot of death. Some of it, violent death. I mean, I've had friends who've been murdered. Olaf Palmer, the Prime Minister of Sweden. Joe Cox. Anna Lindt, the Foreign Minister of Sweden, was a great friend of mine. And others who've been murdered.
29:53Neil Kinnock:And so you comprehend violent death, but also the agony of incurable disease. But even with that background, Eric's response action came as a difficult to manage moment.
30:13Lewis Goodall:I can imagine. Why do you think they loathed you so much? I mean, yes, you took them on, but it didn't necessarily need to lead to that level of... Is it because they thought that you were their person? because they thought you were on the left?
30:30Neil Kinnock:No, they'd never voted for me.
30:32Lewis Goodall:No.
30:32Neil Kinnock:In fact, Eric Heffield ran against you. Against you, yeah. And he ran against Roy Hattersley when Tony Benn ran against me in 88. So that grouping in the parliamentary party, which was, by the time we finished, very, very small, and in the party generally, had never voted for me, which was okay as far as I'm concerned. but they detested me I think because I attacked them from the left. I told them that they were betraying the interests of democratic socialism by not making the effort to appeal to a breadth of the British electorate and you know I have to say things to them like not sort of sit them down and look them in the face and say it, but in meetings where I knew that they were in the audience or on the platform listening, things like only people with shallow convictions are afraid of compromise.
31:34Neil Kinnock:People with deep convictions are not afraid of compromise because they realize that incrementally that's how we make progress. And so if you're serious about trying to secure support for a democratic socialist society, you will not be afraid to make compromises. But they struck this posture of purity. And of course, for the pure, it's very difficult to compromise, especially when they're afraid of diluting their purity
32:08Lewis Goodall:if they make a compromise. Well, as you say, it wasn't even, as you say, the best part of the speech. In a way, some of those themes you reflected later on about what Labour had done for you. Let's just listen to a bit of that part of the speech.
32:21Neil Kinnock:This party, everything I've got, not the job, not being leader of the Labour Party, I owe this party every life chance I've had from the time I was a child. A life chance.
32:44Neil Kinnock:The life chance of a comfortable home with working parents, people with jobs. A life chance of moving out of a pest and dump infested set of rooms into a decent home built by a Labour council under a Labour government. the life chance of an education that went on for as long as I wanted to take it. Me and millions of others of my generation got all their chances from this movement.
33:24Neil Kinnock:We've got to win, not for our sakes, but really truly, to deliver the British people from evil. Let's do it.
33:39Yeah.
33:40Neil Kinnock:I was just looking there at the sourness of Joan Maynard and Dennis Skinner sitting immediately behind me who were devotees of Ben and Heffer. But over my left shoulder...
34:00Neil Kinnock:my wife
34:05Lewis Goodall:Linus you lost a few years ago
34:12yeah
34:13Lewis Goodall:what did she think of the speech do you remember
34:20Neil Kinnock:by custom after the leader's speech we went back to our suite in the hotel. Leaders have a suite. Very nice, of course. A lot of mates there from the constituency and friends, trade union movement, journalists. Dickie Attenborough was there. You know, lots of friends from film and the theatre and so on. And all having a drink. And she came up to me.
35:10Neil Kinnock:give me a kiss and she said oh I'm glad you got that out of your system
35:20Lewis Goodall:and you had you had got it out of your system Yeah. And it was a turning point. It was a turning point for the Labour Party, for sure. Well, so they say, yeah. You think it was, when you look back?
35:29Neil Kinnock:I guess at the time it was, but manifestly not enough. We still had a long, long, long way to go. And actually, it took another 12 years after that to get Tony Blair into government with a huge majority. So... Did he ever say anything true about that speech? Oh, yeah, he's always been very kind about it, yeah.
35:54Lewis Goodall:I suppose he probably thinks it was a key... Oh, yes. ..key stepping stone to his own victory in 97.
36:00Neil Kinnock:Yeah, I mean, he said quite frequently...
36:03Lewis Goodall:He must have been in the hall, I assume.
36:05Neil Kinnock:He must have been. He was an MP by then. Yeah, he was an MP, yes, he'd been an MP. In 83, yeah. Yeah, he was in the hall. Gordon was there, obviously. And, you know, Tony said afterwards, when he became Prime Minister, very generously, said he couldn't have done what he did if I hadn't done what I did so you know that's a degree of compensation
36:31Lewis Goodall:You were talking before you came in saying that you've just been doing a talk at a school and one of the questions was why is the left has so much more tendency to kind of fragment and to be divided than the right and obviously what you were doing in that speech was taking on some of that fragmentation in that division. I wonder, do you think that's still true on the right? I mean, in a way, the right in British politics now is becoming more radicalised. And you see a lot... I wonder, do you see a lot of some of the tendencies that you saw then on the left on the right today, a lot of those same hallmarks?
37:04Neil Kinnock:Well, there's several, several parallels. And this is the point I made when I was answering these very smart youngsters who were questioning me. I mean, the frequency of division on the left is because on the left of politics everywhere in the world, there are idealists and ideologues. And there is always an element of people, always, hopefully not in a majority making decisions, but they always exist, who want victory in a democracy on their terms. And of course, in a democracy, you can't do that. You can get some of what you want, but you get victory on the terms set by the electorate, not decided beforehand by some always brilliant junta of political geniuses.
37:59Neil Kinnock:So then you get in the divergences and arguments of ideals and ideologues, tacticians and strategists, the divisions that go with it. I've never really come to terms with it, but that's the reason. On the right, because they represent vested interest, generally speaking, they are more disciplined. I won't say cohesive, but disciplined, so that under pressure, they tend to stand shoulder to shoulder, face outward and fix bailouts, which is one of the reasons why the Tory party has ruled for most of the last century and more, because they're much more disciplined. And it isn't that they don't have disagreements.
38:46Neil Kinnock:Now, what's happened in our generation, in this century, is conservatives in defeat, smashed in 1997, after 18 years in government, wandered around, bewildered for a bit, then thought they should move radically to the right, and they picked Ian Duncan Smith. They then had to get Michael Howard in to repair the damage. Then they picked nice Mr Cameron, who looked like, sounded like, echoed in some ways, Tony Blair. And they eventually got coalition with the Liberals. Since that time, they've deluded themselves, as some on the ultra-left always had, that if they only changed their leadership, their fortunes would be transformed.
39:43Neil Kinnock:And in the history of the Conservative Party, of course, there's never been the repetitive change of leader that we've seen in the last, what is it, nine years since the Brexit referendum. And there are errors now being made by the right, which fail to satisfy the public desire for real change. And superficially, and I hope temporarily, that desire for change is articulated by reform, who, of course, are not a change party. They're very much the same party, but they sound as if they want a significant change.
40:28Lewis Goodall:How do you think Starmer's dealing with Farage? He made a very, very good speech last week. Well, you say you, how do you think it ranks his conference? We were talking about your conference speech in 85. What did you make of his in 2025?
40:39Neil Kinnock:It's probably his best conference speech. You think? Yeah, and his heart and soul were in it. The trouble is, and I'm sure he would agree, I haven't been in touch with him other than to say, well done, which I'm not patronizing him. It's important that people know when they've done well. I'm very much in favor of giving essay writers A's when they've really tried and done the homework. But I give Keir an A-plus for that speech. But I'm sure he would take the view, as certainly I do, it's a pity he had to make it. But it was necessary for the Prime Minister to punch down on this occasion. It shouldn't be overdone.
41:24Neil Kinnock:And he had to make it because of the false reputation that reform is building. and the leader of the Labour Party needed to offer his view of their shallowness and their illusions and their dishonesty,
41:46Lewis Goodall:which he did in very fine form. Do you think that he's right to say that Farage's policy is racist? Do you think Farage is racist?
41:54Neil Kinnock:I don't know if Farage is racist, only he could answer it. and you're unlikely to get other things other than some kind of slithering response. What do you make of him as a politician? Do you think he's formidable? He's a man of his age. We live in the age of celebrity. And he's managed, and I guess it's to his credit really as an operator, to make himself a celebrity. On investigation, of course, the bottom comes out. I mean, I'll give you a precise example. back in July the end of July he goes to South Wales makes a speech saying he wants to re-industrialise South Wales fine, ok, I couldn't disagree with that except that the re-industrialisation that I would suggest is investment in the development of green energy and green manufacturing and Wales is wide open for that and he's already undertaking Some of that, I hope it can be a lot more because our fortunes need restoring.
43:00Neil Kinnock:But his way of re-industrializing was to say he wanted to reopen the coal mines and restart the blasphemies. Anybody who knows anything about coal and steel, and this includes most of the people living in South Wales, knows you can't reopen a coal mine and you can't restart a blasphemous. You can build new ones, you can take new mines, but he can't reopen them. And so, you know, in the sweep of his oratory, if you can call it that, he was really offering an utter fiction to the people of South Wales. when he was asked by a young woman journalist whether that was practical, he said, I quote him, there were aspirations and anything's achievable with the right mindset.
43:58Neil Kinnock:And so everything he'd said in the previous 20 minutes came to pieces.
44:04Lewis Goodall:Do you think he's dangerous? Some Labour MPs have described him as dangerous figure. Do you think he's dangerous?
44:08Neil Kinnock:He's dangerous in the sense that he offers illusions. I mean, his ideas on resolving or managing immigration by gigantic scale repatriation is just, on any examination, empty. Repatriation of whom to where, by what means. And so what might ring a bell in headline terms turns to ashes the moment that it's matched against reality. Do you think that Starmer's government
44:46Lewis Goodall:is being sufficiently radical in its thinking to take him on, though? You've talked before about the idea of a wealth tax and other things. Sure, sure. Do you think he's been radical in that?
44:55Neil Kinnock:I've talked about asset taxes. We can talk about that if you want to. But look, as I've said many times before, Farajan reform will only be defeated by achievement in government, practical things that people can see to be beneficial, like cutting the waiting lists and developing the health services, like investing in skills and new training, like building houses, like restoring infrastructure and supporting communities, giving people back pride in where they're from and where they live, and demonstrating in very, very practical, tangible terms that they are not left behind. That's the main way it has to be done and will be done.
45:47Neil Kinnock:It's very gradually starting. And the other way is to get articulate politicians who will examine very thoroughly what reform is, not just who they are, but what it is, who they've associated with, what they've said, policies that they've adopted, and expose them to the light.
46:10Lewis Goodall:I just wonder whether you think, I don't know if you've heard what Robert Jenrick has said this week or today about, or he was recorded as saying, talking about that he was in Hansworth and he didn't see a white face and that that was a sign of poor integration. And he then says, you know, it wasn't about race, you know, whatever. But we see more and more of this sort of stuff. We see more and more. It feels like politics is moving very quickly in a particular direction. It's a swirl.
46:37Neil Kinnock:It's a mainstream politics at the moment. And it's very, very difficult for people with the obligations and responsibilities of office like a government.
46:49Lewis Goodall:Doesn't it feel like politics is galloping to the right, despite the fact we have a Labour government?
46:53Neil Kinnock:No, not really. See, what we're seeing is galloping grievance. People, I encounter people everywhere, were really, really brassed off. Now, some people are brassed off because of this tendency towards, for want of a better phrase, the right. A lot of other people are brassed off because they really think with justification that they've been left behind, that their hopes and aspirations are being neglected. I mean, you talk to a young couple who wanted to buy a house. Something, I mean, my wife and I in 1967 moved into our relatively new, or five-year-old, three-bedroom, semi-detached house with a garden back in front and a garage on the Monday after we were married.
47:44Neil Kinnock:Our house. I mean, we had a mortgage, obviously, but we never had any doubt while we were graduating that we were going to be able to get married and buy a house. How many young couples can do that now? So when you're in that situation and I'm only giving that as an incidence of the difficulty of having realistic aspiration hope that can be fulfilled.
48:12Lewis Goodall:And yet it seems to be the reform are the ones who are managing to speak to that grievance so effectively. I mean, for example, we know... Well, yeah, because they're offering
48:19Neil Kinnock:very, very simplistic responses, never answers,
48:22Lewis Goodall:to immensely complex problems. But, for example, in, you know, part of the country, you know best, you know, that you're from Wales, from South Wales. Reform doing really, really well. Suggestion that Labour could come third or fourth in the Senate elections next year. Do you think if that were to happen, Keir Starmer would be, his leadership would be under threat?
48:39Neil Kinnock:I'm not going to even guess about that. Partly because of Maelstrom, the swirl. Anybody will give you or pretend to offer you an accurate estimate of the outcome next May in Wales, in Scotland, in local elections. It would be a body blow, though,
48:55Lewis Goodall:given how successful Labour has been in Wales for a century. It would be a body blow, wouldn't it?
49:00Neil Kinnock:Quite. I mean, that's part of the reason for a degree of difficulty now. We've been the majority political representatives of Wales for a century. Indeed, over a century, 101 years, I think. Now, in some quarters, of course, that could produce complacency. The party in Wales has stayed sufficiently awake not to become complacent, take things for granted. But, of course, if you've been there a long time, the assumption by parts of the electorate will always be, for reasons I understand, that they are being taken for granted. And occasionally they'll want to stick you in the eye with a very sharp stick.
49:47Neil Kinnock:And there's some of that. But, I mean, well, I've got a lot of faith in the current leadership of the party in Wales. Elinid Morgan, she's a dear, dear friend. She's doing the job out of total commitment and duty to Wales and to the Labour Party. and I hope that that will come through with increasing illumination over these coming months.
50:13Lewis Goodall:You know a thing or two about deputy leadership elections. To you and divisive ones. Are you backing a candidate in this one? Oh yeah, I'm backing Lucy Powell. Lucy Powell? Yeah, that's public knowledge. Why is that?
50:27Neil Kinnock:Well, I mean, part of everything else, she's been a very good friend and comrade for over 20 years since she was a kid. but she's also a highly intelligent woman with a very practical turn of mind. She wants to solve problems.
50:43Lewis Goodall:Is there a danger that having a deputy leader outside the cabinet might be rather unstable?
50:48Neil Kinnock:No, and this is not a divisive deputy leadership election. When you think of some that we've had. Well, yes. Yeah, I mean, this is the height of moderation and politeness.
51:00Lewis Goodall:Would you like to see Angela Rayner back in the cabinet?
51:01Neil Kinnock:She will be at some stage.
51:04Lewis Goodall:I mean, she's a very capable woman. Do you think she was a victim of classism? That's what some people said.
51:09Neil Kinnock:I guess so. But what did for her is that she inadvertently got her tax position wrong. And so I guess in these days she had no alternative but to resign.
51:22Lewis Goodall:Just one final thing. We're looking back on that speech. It was 40 years ago. I know you said you didn't like doing it, Neil, but remarkable really, because it is a remarkable example of political oratory. we don't really get that sort of thing that much these days. Do you think that's a problem?
51:36Neil Kinnock:Well, I think I might be partly to blame for that in a funny kind of way. Really? Well, I got such a belting for being the Welsh windbag because to a degree in the tradition of some Welsh people, some Scots, some Yorkshire people, I've always been willing to use colourful language in order to paint pictures in making a political argument. I said that in my own defense. Nobody else is going to defend me, so I might as well. Anyway, that gave me a very bad name. And what was worse, and probably true, was for much of the time that I was leader of the party, I couldn't afford to say what I really meant because I was in the process of making huge changes in policy.
52:29And if I'd rehearsed those arguments too publicly, too early, then the opponents of change would have organized against me.
52:39Neil Kinnock:So sometimes I had to use long, tortured answers, too many words in order to evade their question. And it got on my nerves. And I think it got on the nerves of discerning public. So maybe there was something in the Welsh windbag, but I was employing it as a tactical necessity. And I think what's happened is people who've got the capability of being fluent and articulate and respecting their audiences enough to want to bring them into the argument have been frightened to use the colourful language in case they attracted the criticism I did.
53:25Lewis Goodall:Were you not sat there watching Keir's speech last week going, oh, come on, Keir, give it a bit of welly. Give it some of the Kinakonian kind of welly.
53:32Neil Kinnock:No, but if you've got to do that, it's no damn good. It's got to be the absolute straight, authentic article. If you're pretending, forget it. Sit down and shut up because your audience, if there's anything to them, they will smell it. It's no good saying, I'm going to give it some welly today. you either get up and say what you mean or you shut up Neil Kinnock, thanks so much
53:59Lewis Goodall:thank you absolute pleasure
54:10Lewis Goodall:The News Agents well, for me, a geek of political history what you hadn't noticed, that was a complete treat Neil Kinnock is a walking treasure trove of modern British political life because he has lived so much of it. And the thing I always feel, meeting him, interviewing him, is he is everything that people say they want these days politicians to be. He is completely himself, his authentic self. He is warm. He is sincere. He is a proper human being, warts and all, faults and all, rounded and all. His heart, that big Welsh heart for all to see, with the astonishing, searing love he so obviously had for his beloved wife, Glynis.
54:55Lewis Goodall:The greatest Prime Minister we never had? Well, that's for others to say, but I think I'm willing to stick my neck out and say that he would have perhaps been the nicest. That is it from all of us for this week. Thanks as ever to our production team. On the news agents, Georgia Foxwell, Rory Simon, Natalie Inge, Shane Fennelly, Anna Georgevich, Mikey Baggs, Michaela Walters and Arvind Badawell. Our executive producer is Louis Degenhart. Our editor is Tom Hughes. No John or Emily today. They're on the Robert Jenrick Hansworth walking tour. Oh, it's not racist. They're just counting white faces as they do it.
55:26Lewis Goodall:The good news is we'll all be back integrated together on Monday. And remember, if you can't get enough of us or well me, listen to my LBC Sunday show, all the big interviews and the best analysis, unlike the ones on TV. It's not actually boring. And download, coining it, my new documentary series if you haven't already. We will see you on Monday. Have a lovely weekend. This has been a Global Player original production.
From the publisher
As this year’s party conference season draws to a close, Lewis sits down with Neil Kinnock to reflect on his iconic 1985 Labour Conference speech. They discuss leadership, the power of political courage, and what the future holds for the Labour Party.
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