Kinnock, the visionary?


The following letter was sent to the Observer by ‘Liverpool 47’ former councillor Tony Mulhearn, but was not published by the Observer.

Neil Kinnock, the visionary? He declares Andy Burnham will lead Labour to victory by adopting policies of which his lordship approves (Observer commentary 2/8/2015).

I’m perplexed. Is this the same Lord Kinnock who led Labour to two of the worst defeats in its history and described public ownership as “nonsense”? He mines his well of intellectual rigour and produces vacuous platitudes. He says Andy Burnham “…manifests a vital resilience that has been produced by his character and convictions… producing usable progressive answers to the problems which afflict our age.” This is verbiage.

Burnham’s austerity-lite position led Labour to be destroyed in Scotland and gifted the Tories a victory. It had no appeal to those who defected to Ukip or to the 39% of non-voters. Kinnock gives no clue as to how regurgitating the same sentiments will produce a different result.

He smears Corbyn’s spectacular support with the claim of Trotskyites and Telegraph readers supporting him for their own ‘malign purposes’. In Bournemouth in 1985 he maligned the Liverpool City Council, to the ecstatic approval of the same Telegraph and the rest of Fleet Street.

His Lordship should be reminded that if Liverpool’s election results in 1987 had been replicated nationally, rather than him ensuring a further ten years of Thatcherism, Labour would have been returned with a landslide majority.