I warn you not to be ordinary

If David Cameron is elected as prime minister this year, I warn you.

I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

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

I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.

I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If David Cameron wins this year –

- 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.

Actually it was Neil Kinnock on Margaret Thatcher in a speech in Bridgend, Glamorgan, on Tuesday 7 June 1983, but 27 years later the terror of a Tory government hasn’t changed.

David Cameron is right when he talks today about the need to fulfil your patriotic duty. But he’s wrong in his conclusion. It is our patriotic duty to do everything in our power to prevent the terror of a Tory government. Now is not the time to gamble that Cameron can keep the old, nasty Tories at bay. He can’t. They are waiting in the shadows to clip Cameron’s wings and implement policies that will damage British business

- attack the ordinary

- attack the young

-attack the ill

- attack the old.