Neil Kinnock (28 March 1942 – 15 September 2015) died yesterday, it has been announced. The former President passed away peacefully in his sleep after a two year struggle with cancer.
Assured his place in the history books as the man who made 'New Labour' possible, Kinnock seemed ready to retire from public life after the surprise victory of John Major in 1992. But it was in 1998 that, in the wake of the abolition of the monarchy triggered by the Diana Crisis, he was approached by Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair (then Prime Minister) and offered the Labour candidacy for the first ever British Presidential Elections in 1999. His Tory opponent Chris Patten was convincingly defeated thanks to Labour's huge popularity at the time, and Kinnock soon settled into the highly ceremonial role that what had been termed 'the Irish-model Presidency' became. It was he who led Britain's tributes to the victims of the September 2001 terrorist attacks and he who Britons rallied around after our own brush with terrorism in 2005. After serving two immensely successful five-year-terms, Kinnock stepped down in 2009, with his endorsement doing little good for the flagging Labour candidate, Margaret Beckett, defeated as she was by none other than John Major.
The man credited with the first steps towards New Labour will also, ironically, enter the history books as the man who undermined its golden boy. Tony Blair's personal popularity took a number of hits on controversial policies over the years - not least the Iraq War - and in matters where he would have sought to claim personal credit on behalf of the nation, the ever-present Kinnock would often steal the show. Pushed from office less than a year after the 2005 election, Blair gave way to Gordon Brown, who in turn lost the 2010 election to David Cameron and ended 13 years of Labour politicians in either constitutional high office of our Republic.
President Cable led tributes to Kinnock yesterday from the steps of Britain House, calling him 'a pioneer to a whole generation, and one of the most resilient politicians of our time'. President-elect Farage joined the tributes, saying that while he and Kinnock had disagreed on 'the Europe question', he had always found him a 'thoroughly decent, committed and respectable politician whose first thought was always the people of this great country'. From abroad, former Vice President Biden led American tributes to 'one of my finest speechwriters' - a joking throwback to the controversy that surrounded Biden's plagiarism from Kinnock's own speeches.
He leaves behind his wife, Glenys, his daughter, Rachel and his son, Stephen, who is married to the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. He will be missed most of all, said Glenys yesterday, by his four grandchildren.