Keir Starmer and Tony Blair at present joined mourners on the funeral of Glenys Kinnock, a former minister, MEP and the spouse of ex-Labour chief Lord Kinnock.
Figures from throughout Labour previous and current, together with Gordon Brown, Alastair Campbell, Lord Mandelson and Ed Balls, all attended the service in north London. Several Shadow Cabinet ministers together with Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn gathered for the service alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Baroness Kinnock, 79, who served as a minister within the New Labour authorities and in addition represented Wales within the European Parliament as an MEP, died peacefully on December 3. Her wicker casket was adorned with pink roses, an emblem of Labour launched by Lord Kinnock within the Eighties.
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Mr Brown was amongst those that spoke on the funeral to pay tribute to her life and profession, with son Stephen, a serving Labour MP, and daughter Rachel additionally addressing mourners. Mr Campbell, in addition to former MEP and peer Michael Cashman, additionally spoke. He stated the service was a “wonderful send off” and he was “honoured” to be requested by Lord Kinnock to ship the closing eulogy, which he posted on-line after.
In it, he paid tribute to Baroness Kinnock as a “matriarch” of the Labour household, in addition to a “true family friend” as he recalled “unforgettable” reminiscences of holidays full of cooking, laughter and singing. “She was driven every day of her life by two things: her love of family and friends, and her passion for the great causes she believed in, above all how to help raise people up, especially children, women, and the poor and oppressed, wherever in the world they were,” he stated.
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On saying her demise, her household stated they had been “devastated” by her passing, which comes six years after she was identified with Alzheimer’s illness. They stated: “Glenys endured Alzheimer’s after being diagnosed in 2017 and, as long as she could, sustained her merriment and endless capacity for love, never complaining and with the innate courage with which she had confronted every challenge throughout her life”
Labour leader Keir Starmer led tributes to a “true fighter for the Labour Party “. Sir Tony said Baroness Kinnock’s death would be “mourned in lots of nations and corners of the Earth”. “In her final years, as Stephen and Rachel have written, she took her sickness with the identical steadfastness which had ruled her life,” he stated. “Our deepest condolences to Neil, to Rachel and to Stephen and to all the wider Kinnock family.”