Leading Article: Another left-wing role?

CAN WE FIND a job for Neil Kinnock? The smart political money is on a move to the European Commission. But EC directives are long and complex enough, without the addition of Mr Kinnock's subordinate clauses. A teaching career may seem a better answer: Mr Kinnock is a former Labour education spokesman and has a track record for quelling the unruly. But he is a Sixties graduate and, in its desire to extirpate 'trendiness', the Government has all but banned his like from the profession. We need to consider Mr Kinnock's talents and inclinations. For example, he likes to express his opinions, at length and in a manner that tends to irritate the public. A London cab driver?

No. There is one position above all others which seems specially suited to Mr Kinnock's experience, political skills and personal enthusiasms. He should become secretary to the Welsh Rugby Union. Here is a body that has known better days and has need of faith in lost causes. It is accustomed to internecine strife (substitute East and West Wales for left and right); it has lost key players to an upstart (substitute Rugby League for Social Democratic Party); it talks nostalgically of past heroes (substitute Barry John for Nye Bevan); it holds fast to outdated ideals in which it never really believed anyway (substitute amateurism for Clause Four); it embraces change long after everyone else (substitute leagues for markets). It has also celebrated a number of false dawns and its supporters are apt, on important occasions, to break into song. There is only one snag. Surely, after all this time, Mr Kinnock deserves a chance of winning something.