Page 3 Profile: Neil Kinnock, ex-Labour MP

Photo by REX/Stephen Simpson (1458876a) Former Leader of the Labour Party Neil Kinnock The Annual Labour Party Conference, Liverpool, Britain - 27 Sep 2011

He’s not standing as Labour leader again, is he?

No, the ex-Labour MP has been putting his energy into other things – too much of his energy according to some…the former Labour party leader was berated at the weekend at a football match between Cardiff City and Fulham.

Has hooliganism returned to our terraces?

Not quite. He joined hundreds of other Cardiff City fans in the home seats at Fulham’s Craven Cottage ground after the Welsh team’s away seating ran out. The 71 year-old upset Fulham supporters who said he leapt about with joy too much when his team scored. Security staff had to escort him and his grandchildren to the away stand where there were some spare seats. To be fair to him, it was Cardiff City’s first away win in the top league since 1962, when it was the First Division, and he’s been a supporter since he was six.

Was he this boisterous as a politician?

Less boisterous, more presumptuous. He served as an MP in Wales from 1970 to 1995, and was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1983 until 1992. He holds the questionable honour of being the only Leader of the Opposition to hold his position for so long but never be elected to lead the country. After Margaret Thatcher was ousted as Prime Minister, and replaced as Conservative Party leader by John Major, Kinnock thought he was a shoe-in to run Britain. He even badgered Major to hold an election. But he didn’t win, with some attributing his loss in 1992 to the front page of The Sun. It read: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights” next to a mock up of Kinnock’s on a light bulb. Seeing “It’s The Sun Wot Won It” across the paper’s front page the next day probably didn’t make him feel any better. He resigned in July that year.

So if Cardiff City win the Premier League this season, we can expect a riot?

Quite possibly, he has previously been quoted before a big match saying: “Decorum will not come into it if Cardiff win.”