During the 1987 general election campaign, Neil Kinnock was asked by David Frost how he would respond were the United Kingdom threatened by a nuclear-armed Soviet Union. The Labour leader, then an advocate of unilateral disarmament, replied: “This is a classical choice between exterminating everything you stand for and the flower of your youth, or using all the resources you have to make any occupation totally untenable.”
Margaret Thatcher ruthlessly exploited his remarks, deriding the party’s policy as one “for defeat, surrender, occupation and, finally, prolonged guerilla fighting”. Kinnock protested that his comments had been distorted – “There is no question of guerilla warfare or a Dad’s Army” – but the charge stuck. Labour was irrevocably branded as “soft on defence”.
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