Britain was on the cusp of one of the last century’s two great periods of economic and social change, when Labour’s future leader delivered a speech of rare and ominous prescience.

Neil Kinnock’s address to a hustings in Bridgend on the eve of the 1983 general election is memorable, not only because of the compelling power of his delivery, but because its content remains as relevant today as it was then.

Contrary to what many people remember the first Thatcher government, elected in 1979, was comparatively benign compared with what was to come – the miners’ strike, mass unemployment, the economic vandalism of the 1980s, the Poll Tax – and Kinnock knew that it was simply a warm-up routine.

If Thatcher was re-elected, he told the packed hall and a live TV audience on News at Ten, “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”.

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A politician so cruelly misrepresented in the Conservative media, Kinnock was not only the architect of New Labour, and arguably the best Prime Minister his party never had, he was also the greatest platform orator of his generation.

Listening to one of his rousing, charismatic and intelligent speeches, was to be reminded of the power of collective ambition and the glorious possibility of change. Above all, he always stressed the importance of not overpromising and of delivering.

Neil Kinnock (Image: PA)

What is striking about listening to his words today – more than 40 years later – is that under the current leadership, they might equally apply to the Labour government.

Labour leaders have always........

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