“I think it’s time we – stop, children, what’s that sound ?

 Everybody look what’s going down.

 There’s battle lines being drawn;

 Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.

 Young people speaking their minds,

 Getting so much resistance from behind..”

 

-       From ‘For what it’s worth’ by Buffalo Springfield.

 

Neil Kinnock made a speech in Bridgend in June 1983 that carries an ironic resonance for voters today. Attempting to stoke fears of a re-elected Thatcher government, his jeremiad included the following admonitions:

“If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday..

 

“I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that can’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.

 

“I warn you that you must not expect work..

 

“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.”

 

Last Thursday, Britain posted its first budget deficit for a January since records began, as government spending exceeded revenues by £4.3 billion. The previous day, the number of people claiming jobless benefits rose to its highest level since April 1997 – the year that Labour was elected. On the same day, despite a government order for local authorities to disclose the earnings of all executives, those authorities declined to list the names and salaries of those employees paid more than £50,000 a year, arguing that they could be subjected to “personalised attacks and mischief making”.

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