Neil Kinnock in 1983:
“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.”
Kinnock was right on pretty well every count, but some things turned out even worse. Thatcher wrecked the NHS, presided over mass unemployment, took away workers’ rights, sold off much of the social housing stock and so much more. And to this day, Thatcher’s dark shadow hangs over all of us.
This morning, we wake to find that the United States of America has re-elected a tyrant, a demagogue, a rampant narcissist, a Russian asset, a rapist and a crook, a man who will effectively be the leader of the western world.
I could rewrite Kinnock’s words, adding things like “I warn you not to expect health care. I warn women not to have control over their own reproductive system. I warn you not to be ‘foreign’. I warn you not to live in Ukraine”, but I won’t. It’s all too predictable, it’s all too depressing.
Neil Young, a Canadian by birth sang this in his song American Dream:
“How could something so good, go bad, so fast?”
Well, Americans voted for Donald Trump, that’s how. Just look at what they have voted to diminish and destroy:
Women’s Rights
Abortion
Gay rights
Health care and vaccination
Ukraine
World trade
Agenda 2025
Be afraid. And I say that not just to Americans. America voted to make it darker. It will also be darker for the rest of us.
Still, at least one man will be happy. The one in the Kremlin. You want it darker? We kill the flame.
PICTURE BY COLD WAR STEVE
