@Paul Gavin ????? He's actually saying quite the opposite. Do you know what a giveaway budget is? A bribe. He's saying the public are sceptical of being bribed. If anything, he's praising the public.
"You had servants!" " No I ....Thirty years ago [When Jenkins was 17] Welsh miners' sons didn't live in houses with many servants as a mater of fact." ..... "The family now [When Jenkins was a schoolboy] had a live-in maid."
My grandfather was a village schoolmaster. My grandparents had a live in maid on his rather modest salary. This was not considered as “having servants”!
As an American Socialist who can't either identity with either the Militant Tendency nor the "gang of four" from the early 1980's which led to the rise of the Social Democratic Party, the British Labour Party's civil war in the 1970's & 80's were most fascinating...
Labour's "soft left" has always been the better faction of the three. Not batshit crazy like the Militant types and not neoliberal sellouts like the third way.
He knew the right words to say polite conversations round the political tables. I became aware of his political longevity with a win in a political seat in Glasgow a number of years ago
It's hard to find anyone in any faction of politics who is even one-tenth of the calibre of Roy Jenkins (or Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Benn, Denis Healey, Michael Foot or any of his other contempories).
There's a bit at the very end of "Yesterday's Men" when Wilson's shadow cabinet goes into their meeting room, and just watching the folks around the table--Jenkins, Healey, Foot, Williams, Benn, Castle, Crossland, Callaghan, etc.--and then thinking of the government cabinet--with people like Thatcher, MacLeod, Joseph, etc.--regardless of your politics, that's an amazing collection of heavy hitters on both sides.
Haven't watched this yet but until now I would have known the name mostly as the author of perhaps the best one volume biography of Churchill ever written.
He's in many ways the man that created modern Britain. The decriminalisation of abortion, homosexuality and the modernisation of the Victorian divorce laws and penal system he inherited.
I sometimes wonder as a Labour member, how different would life in Britain been if Roy had won the Labour Leadership against Callaghan, or if the Falklands war didn't happen or failed to boost the popularity of Thatcher, which would have allow Jenkins to be Prime Minister either of those times... I seriously think Britain would have been better off with him than at any point under Thatcher, but I guess that for an alternate form of history
I think the left-right split was inevitable. I remember Hart speaking after Wilson’s resignation and stating that the party had to choose someone to unite the party. Dragon’s teeth had been planted.
I'm an American and I've been following British politics since the 90s, and as an outsider looking inward,, Roy Jenkins was an institutionalist who believed that's institutions were the center of human civilization and that anyone or anything outside those institutions had to put back into the sheep herd or get sent off the butcher shop.
Love this old BBC documentary, thank you so much for sharing. but I cannot figure out why the students at East Anglia university did not welcome him that much.
The highlight of this video is his grandson criticizing Tony Blair. I rather liked Roy Jenkins as I like a classy intellectual with a good sense of humor. He reminded me of my father. He would have made a fine PM.
Owen Smith was the new Roy Jenkins. When Corbyn was challenged for a re-election, I saw Roy Jenkins and Michael Foot. McDonnell as Benn.I realised Blair was following Gaitskell.Funny how history now has repeated. Starmer is Sir John Major of Labour no wonder Bercow likes him.
Roy Jenkins is one of the greatest UK politicians of the 20th century, in my opinion. Just look at what he achieved as a liberalising Home Secretary in the late 1960s. Neither the legalisation of abortion nor the decriminalisation of homosexuality would have happened when they did without him. He wanted a more civilised, humane and equal society and took steps to achieve it.
Roy Jenkins just did not have the ' common touch'. I recall seeing a bit of newsreel of him campaigning for election in some Scottish continuency by waiting outside a Bingo Hall to approach people as they exited. At a loss what to say, he took a leaf out of Her Majesty's book and asked " And have you come far ? "
Jenkins, Healy, Benn Foot, Kinnock and the rest of the post Big Jim era in Labour is all you need to know so as to explain why Thatcher dominated the 80s
chris holley Jenkins never claimed to working class and his reforms on legalizing homosexuality brought this country into the 20th Century instead of being stuck in a repressive, backward looking rut.
Mark Thirkell Yes, Jenkins may have never "claimed" to be working class, but he jolly well used a working class movement (The Labour Party) to further his own career. Roy would have been more suited to the Liberal Party. However, we know why he didn't join them...they would never have been to elected to government that's why!! So, he stuck his "sticky" paws into Labour instead!! Homosexuality?? Please don't make me laugh. Roy only changed the rules because he was "hanging out the back door" with Anthony Crossland. Yes, persecution of gays is not good. However, was it really worth all the hassle to "appease" 1% of the population, when "screwing" up the other 90 odd % in the process?? Divorces, abortions et al now leaves us living in a society every bit as immoral as the homosexual society Jenkins adorned! A "Doctor Frankenstein" of the highest order!!
@@alphabetaxenonzzzcat Jenkins was always against what the EU later became, though. He was more like Thatcher in that he wanted nothing more than free trade and cooperation on certain things - what the EU later came was probably not something he would have approved of.
@@halfbakedproductions7887 He famously wrote a paper for a proposed single European currency, when he was the President of the then EEC back in the late 1970s and early 1980s(when he was still in the Labour party).
When I was young, stupid and left wing I thought he was a disaster for splitting the left wing vote and allowing Thatcher in I now see that was the service he did the country
***** Can't remember What I had in mind in January . But he did help anchor Britian in Europe and he ensured that the Tories had big enouth majorities in the 1980's to do all the necessary reforms that I stupidly opposed at the time -
***** No I think Government's have no business running things like Airlines and telecom company's and when they do they do it badly and they provide a poor service and are a Drain on the productive parts of the economy. By selling them into the private sector they become more efficient provide better service and make profits so pay taxes and dividends . Shares on the stock exchange are mostly owned by my and your pension funds . If a foreign company purchases them the money is available for our funds to invest else where which is possibly going to be outside the UK - t took we many years to realise these fairly simple facts so I don't expect you to grasp it now- but if you are not wilfully stupid you will one day
***** That is possibly so However a government will force you to pay up or services it has decided to provide by force of law you can go to Gaol for not paying taxes. A corporation, say a privatised company like BT or BA must convince you, you want to pay them -if you don't care for what they offer you can go elsewhere or not bother at all ,so on balance you can use your limited power better if these companies are in the private sector
***** Last message because the Peado stuff is nuts. But you seem to have agreed that airlines and telecoms should be private- as for gas and electric before privatisation the government told you who you had to but it from and at what price. Now there are numerous companies you can choice from ,and if you dislike them or their price you can go elsewhere
Jenkins was a truly awful specimen. Saw everyone as beneath him, everything had to be on his terms, he always had to be right and would put you down continually until you were wrong, even if you weren't wrong. A total carpetbagger who did whatever was required to try and keep himself relevant, even if that meant swapping parties and standing as a candidate in somewhere he couldn't even point out on a map. What connections could someone like this possibly have to the likes of Warrington and Hillhead? Harold Wilson didn't rate him much either despite having him in Cabinet.
That's ridiculous. What ever you may think of his politics, he was a principled man who sacrificed his standing in the Labour Party by resigning in 1972.
Like Ian MacLeod, he was a smart man and a great socialite, but unlike e.g. Michael Foot, Enoch Powell, Winston Churchill, or Arthur Balfour, he was no intellectual.
Bent...good timer...dodgy fecker...what a contrast to Tony Benn....a man straight and true and never caught averting his gaze in clear devious fashion like old bacon pig woy!
Love these old bbc docs, thanks for posting.
Fascinating stuff, I wish Michael Cockerell was still doing these regularly.
I could listen to Michael Cockerell for hours, even if he were just reading numbers from a telephone directory.
"The public are highly sceptical of a give away budget before a general election." I think he is a brave politician.
@Paul Gavin ????? He's actually saying quite the opposite. Do you know what a giveaway budget is? A bribe. He's saying the public are sceptical of being bribed. If anything, he's praising the public.
been looking for this for ages thank you for posting it
13:33 where did he go?
Is there a British political documentary produced in the last 30 years that Shirley Williams has not appeared in?
dpf2122 she was a joiner :)
Dennis Skinner’s riposte to Jenkins was brilliant
03:45 what about Salman Rushdie ?
no it wasn’t, just plain rude
@@SaintsBill.i agree. Skinner only ever appealed to people who were like him: dumb, rude, self assured and believe themselves to be witty.
"You had servants!" " No I ....Thirty years ago [When Jenkins was 17] Welsh miners' sons didn't live in houses with many servants as a mater of fact." ..... "The family now [When Jenkins was a schoolboy] had a live-in maid."
My grandfather was a village schoolmaster. My grandparents had a live in maid on his rather modest salary. This was not considered as “having servants”!
That's when it became posh. Hear Diane Abbott,Emily Thornberry, Harriet Harman and Late Tessa Jowell all were posh speakers too.
@@veggie42 I'm confused.. please explain
52:06...Jenkin's grandson highlights the rudeness of Tony Blair.
Were you a SDP/Liberal voter?
@@iandander2473 Was not born at the time, lol.
@@MrReco12 Wait how is this thread so separated? Why did it take over a year for you to reply to the guy?
As an American Socialist who can't either identity with either the Militant Tendency nor the "gang of four" from the early 1980's which led to the rise of the Social Democratic Party, the British Labour Party's civil war in the 1970's & 80's were most fascinating...
Labour's "soft left" has always been the better faction of the three. Not batshit crazy like the Militant types and not neoliberal sellouts like the third way.
He knew the right words to say polite conversations round the political tables. I became aware of his political longevity with a win in a political seat in Glasgow a number of years ago
Jenkins was a superb reforming Home Secretary. Probably the best of the 20th Century.
@Paul Gavin the only nasty thing I can see is your comments. You sound like a bitter old man.
It's hard to find anyone in any faction of politics who is even one-tenth of the calibre of Roy Jenkins (or Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Benn, Denis Healey, Michael Foot or any of his other contempories).
Bollocks
There's a bit at the very end of "Yesterday's Men" when Wilson's shadow cabinet goes into their meeting room, and just watching the folks around the table--Jenkins, Healey, Foot, Williams, Benn, Castle, Crossland, Callaghan, etc.--and then thinking of the government cabinet--with people like Thatcher, MacLeod, Joseph, etc.--regardless of your politics, that's an amazing collection of heavy hitters on both sides.
He could make mistakes, but I'm totally sure he was an honest man.
@@railtonfeagus8539 'Wilson's sex life bizzare.' Sources? Heath wracked by self-loathing? Sources?
I won't hold my breath.
I like this guy.
I am guessing that you have morals of an alley cat then?
08:13 Those same 5 year olds will now be 27/28 years old. I'd be quite interested to hear what any of them think of Roy's legacy now.
I was nearly 3 in 81 when he quit Labour with 3 others. In 2018 it happened again with Change UK.
Most 27/28 year olds will have no idea who idea who Roy Jenkins is
Haven't watched this yet but until now I would have known the name mostly as the author of perhaps the best one volume biography of Churchill ever written.
Read it may years ago and own it. Truly marvelous book.
He's in many ways the man that created modern Britain. The decriminalisation of abortion, homosexuality and the modernisation of the Victorian divorce laws and penal system he inherited.
I sometimes wonder as a Labour member, how different would life in Britain been if Roy had won the Labour Leadership against Callaghan, or if the Falklands war didn't happen or failed to boost the popularity of Thatcher, which would have allow Jenkins to be Prime Minister either of those times... I seriously think Britain would have been better off with him than at any point under Thatcher, but I guess that for an alternate form of history
YOOOOO IDIOT !! HE WAS A TRAITOR WHO WAs happy to sell our right to democracy, for his rich pals to enslave us in the EU prison.
if falklands didn't happen foot would have won and jenkins/steel might have replaced thatcher. pre falklands both were ahead in the polls
Balderdash.
I think the left-right split was inevitable. I remember Hart speaking after Wilson’s resignation and stating that the party had to choose someone to unite the party. Dragon’s teeth had been planted.
That speech after getting hit with flour at the Labour conference was pretty f***ing great.
Bill Rogers trying to dance cracks me up 😂
What a great documentary. What a fine politician in the league of Attlee and Benn.
Woy Jenkins!
Good man! Good man!
Thanks for the upload!
I'm an American and I've been following British politics since the 90s, and as an outsider looking inward,, Roy Jenkins was an institutionalist who believed that's institutions were the center of human civilization and that anyone or anything outside those institutions had to put back into the sheep herd or get sent off the butcher shop.
Love this old BBC documentary, thank you so much for sharing. but I cannot figure out why the students at East Anglia university did not welcome him that much.
18:22 to 18:41 sums up his politics entirely from the POV's of notion and execution.
19:00 leave the EU. We are a proudly sovereign nation
The highlight
of this video is his grandson criticizing Tony Blair. I rather liked Roy Jenkins as I like a classy intellectual with a good sense of humor. He reminded me of my father. He would have made a fine PM.
So who is your father then, are you sure he would have made a good PM ?!
RIP Dame Jennifer Jenkins
Yes indeed...she must have had a really shit life putting up with that scoundrel. What a rotter he was!!
@Paul Gavin Then all i can say Paul, is that she must have been an absolute fool if she didn't care. Talk about cake and eat it!!
Owen Smith was the new Roy Jenkins. When Corbyn was challenged for a re-election, I saw Roy Jenkins and Michael Foot. McDonnell as Benn.I realised Blair was following Gaitskell.Funny how history now has repeated. Starmer is Sir John Major of Labour no wonder Bercow likes him.
Hell no they had much more class than what we have now.
well that goes without saying
He certainly got it wrong about Tony Blair.
so did all the shit for brains idiots who bought into that americanised bullshit style of promise -em everything--like Corbyn.
@WOOF !, yeah man. One of them was a convincing liar.
Roy Jenkins is one of the greatest UK politicians of the 20th century, in my opinion. Just look at what he achieved as a liberalising Home Secretary in the late 1960s. Neither the legalisation of abortion nor the decriminalisation of homosexuality would have happened when they did without him. He wanted a more civilised, humane and equal society and took steps to achieve it.
Roy Jenkins just did not have the ' common touch'. I recall seeing a bit of newsreel of him campaigning for election in some Scottish continuency by waiting outside a Bingo Hall to approach people as they exited. At a loss what to say, he took a leaf out of Her Majesty's book and asked " And have you come far ? "
Keith Joseph was not the only politician barracked by students.
"That was pwurwe parwanoia on his part" - On Wilson believing Jenkins was plotting to overthrow him.
38:50 looks like Degsy Hatton making his way to the stage to try and assault Woy of the Wadicals...
Compare Jenkins as Home Secretary to Suella Braverman and you can see how low our politics have sunk.
He was a complete disaster.
@@JamesRichards-mj9kw Ah, right...
@@lucianopavarotti2843 Jenkins destroyed the UK with his vile "reforms".
@@lucianopavarotti2843 Jenkins was wrong about everything.
Never a big fan of Woy but you are right about this
Jenkins, Healy, Benn Foot, Kinnock and the rest of the post Big Jim era in Labour is all you need to know so as to explain why Thatcher dominated the 80s
Was it Jenkins who said of himself: "Playing a fuddled fiddle in the muddled middle."
No idea but great quote!
Jenkins was an elitist. There are people with less intellectual power and far greater understanding of politics.
Hard agree. Very clever man - but a snob.
Good god, how despicable the students were at 4:40 to 5:41
They are right though. He was lying. And they clearly had a point that he did not belong in a socialist party.
Filthy scousers, what do you expect?
Fergus must be about 37, a man of judgement, he gets my vote.
A truly great man and more importantly a great European
An immoral, working class traitor, who was responsible for everything wrong in our society today.
chris holley Jenkins never claimed to working class and his reforms on legalizing homosexuality brought this country into the 20th Century instead of being stuck in a repressive, backward looking rut.
Mark Thirkell Yes, Jenkins may have never "claimed" to be working class, but he jolly well used a working class movement (The Labour Party) to further his own career. Roy would have been more suited to the Liberal Party. However, we know why he didn't join them...they would never have been to elected to government that's why!! So, he stuck his "sticky" paws into Labour instead!! Homosexuality?? Please don't make me laugh. Roy only changed the rules because he was "hanging out the back door" with Anthony Crossland. Yes, persecution of gays is not good. However, was it really worth all the hassle to "appease" 1% of the population, when "screwing" up the other 90 odd % in the process?? Divorces, abortions et al now leaves us living in a society every bit as immoral as the homosexual society Jenkins adorned! A "Doctor Frankenstein" of the highest order!!
Mark Thirkell a massive dichotomy in thinking
Mark Thirkell enabled child abuse on a massive scale
I just wish he lived to see Brexit
Imagine him and Benn! Shirley hasn't long passed away. Today it's like Change UK.
I'll admit that would of been interesting to see his reaction to that, given that he is so fanatically pro EU.
@@alphabetaxenonzzzcat Jenkins was always against what the EU later became, though. He was more like Thatcher in that he wanted nothing more than free trade and cooperation on certain things - what the EU later came was probably not something he would have approved of.
@@halfbakedproductions7887 He famously wrote a paper for a proposed single European currency, when he was the President of the then EEC back in the late 1970s and early 1980s(when he was still in the Labour party).
Why do people hide behind pseudonyms?
Is this also the man responsible for legalizing :
Abortion ; Homeosexuality ; Pornography ?
Discuss.
Yes, a good man
When I was young, stupid and left wing I thought he was a disaster for splitting the left wing vote and allowing Thatcher in
I now see that was the service he did the country
***** Can't remember What I had in mind in January .
But he did help anchor Britian in Europe and he ensured that the Tories had big enouth majorities in the 1980's to do all the necessary reforms that I stupidly opposed at the time -
***** I won't phrase it quiet like that but yes
***** No I think Government's have no business running things like Airlines and telecom company's and when they do they do it badly and they provide a poor service and are a Drain on the productive parts of the economy.
By selling them into the private sector they become more efficient provide better service and make profits so pay taxes and dividends .
Shares on the stock exchange are mostly owned by my and your pension funds .
If a foreign company purchases them the money is available for our funds to invest else where which is possibly going to be outside the UK - t took we many years to realise these fairly simple facts so I don't expect you to grasp it now- but if you are not wilfully stupid you will one day
***** That is possibly so
However a government will force you to pay up or services it has decided to provide by force of law you can go to Gaol for not paying taxes.
A corporation, say a privatised company like BT or BA must convince you, you want to pay them -if you don't care for what they offer you can go elsewhere or not bother at all ,so on balance you can use your limited power better if these companies are in the private sector
***** Last message because the Peado stuff is nuts.
But you seem to have agreed that airlines and telecoms should be private- as for gas and electric before privatisation the government told you who you had to but it from and at what price.
Now there are numerous companies you can choice from ,and if you dislike them or their price you can go elsewhere
Shame that it’s such a shock to the system when a politician answers a question he’s asked! How refreshing.
Calling him a Welsh miners son is bit rich considering he grew up with a live in maid
His father was a miner, which makes him a miner's son, whatever you think.
Genius or a man
at least he represented in his liberal views
.....what?
Try that again, in English
Jenkins was a truly awful specimen. Saw everyone as beneath him, everything had to be on his terms, he always had to be right and would put you down continually until you were wrong, even if you weren't wrong. A total carpetbagger who did whatever was required to try and keep himself relevant, even if that meant swapping parties and standing as a candidate in somewhere he couldn't even point out on a map. What connections could someone like this possibly have to the likes of Warrington and Hillhead?
Harold Wilson didn't rate him much either despite having him in Cabinet.
A truly depraved man
??????
That's ridiculous. What ever you may think of his politics, he was a principled man who sacrificed his standing in the Labour Party by resigning in 1972.
Hes a Welsh, united kindom, roy jenkin, hes a nother indivi..
Don't go.theres with me. I'm not a play toys either.
Kept the tories in power with his selfishness in the 80s
His books weren't that impressive; merely a summary of the works of much cleverer and more engaging historians. He never had his own ideas.
Like Ian MacLeod, he was a smart man and a great socialite, but unlike e.g. Michael Foot, Enoch Powell, Winston Churchill, or Arthur Balfour, he was no intellectual.
Did he eventually join the Lib Dem’s?
He did support the merger
The biggest waste of space ...EVER...!
OVER--TIME
Awful politician
he was also bisexual
Am utterly useless politician
Bent...good timer...dodgy fecker...what a contrast to Tony Benn....a man straight and true and never caught averting his gaze in clear devious fashion like old bacon pig woy!
WTF???
He held his own in this Europe debate: th-cam.com/video/_zBFh6bpcMo/w-d-xo.html
A traitor to his party.