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Wikipedia Summary for Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as Chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten.
Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religios faiths.
Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.
At the end of my life, I was told to vote for it for pensioners; I' m not in favour of means tests for pensioners or anybody.
I can't go to bed if I haven't done my diary. I always record them just as I've always recorded all my interviews and speeches.
Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.
The Establishment decided Thatcher's ideas were safer with a strong Blair government than with a weak Major government. We are given all these personalities to choose between to disguise the fact that the policies are the same.
The present combination of corporate or commercial control theoretically answerable to politically appointed Boards of Governors is not in any sense a democratic enough procedure to control the power the broadcasters have.
The 1973 Labour Conference will have before it the most radical programme the Party has prepared since 1945.
I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.
A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for; there is all the difference in the world.
The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.
There is good and bad in all of us and the Church uses the idea of original sin to control us by saying that, if we do not obey the bishops, we will rot in Hell.
Remember, imperialism is always presented as humanitarian: the white man's burden, the cross going round the world, the poor benighted natives, the sun never sets... So you have to be very careful about humanitarianism.
Middle class Labour leaders are recaptured by the establishment when they die.
Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation.
I think if journalists were responsible for international policy we'd have a nuclear war every week.
I think democracy is not a destination. I don't think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we'll get there. I think it's a way of thinking about things and every generation has to do it again.
Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. And then he wins the world peace prize and becomes president of South Africa. That's how change happens. It's very important not to differentiate protest from the democratic process.
The way a government treats refugees is very instructive.
I think very often the boat-rockers turn out to be the people who are building the craft.
People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer, and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC.
The New York Times said, There are two superpowers in the world: the United States and the world peace movement.
My alternative to American superpower is the UN and I might add when China becomes the worlds greatest superpower you will need it too.
Thanks to the tabloid campaigns I have many death threats and I was very pleased to get another one the other day.
I really think in the Commonwealth of Europe you should have Russia. I listed a hundred countries that would be in it and it would then be a really European United Nations.
In the end, the tragedy of Harold Wilson was that you couldn't believe a word he said.
We are paying a heavy political price for 20 years in which, as a party, we have played down our criticism of capitalism and soft-peddled our advocacy of socialism.
If I were the American President I would rather be popular than have the power the destroy the world because however many puppets they have all over the Middle East -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so on -- they haven't got support from the people.
The Civil Service is a bit like a rusty weathercock. It moves with opinion then it stays where it is until another wind moves it in a different direction.
I'd rather die on my feet making a speech than die of Alzheimer's -- and that's what I'm planning to do.
I'm a democrat -- I don't support Bush, I don't support Blair, I don't support Bin Laden.
I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner.
Anyone from abroad will tell you that it is the class system that really lies at the root of our problems, economic and industrial. The House of Lords symbolises that.
I am against the Treaty of Rome which entrenches laissez faire as its philosophy and chooses bureaucracy as its administrative method.
I did not enter the Labour Party 47 years ago to have our manifesto written by Dr Mori, Dr Gallup and Mr Harris.
If you're going to make sense of politics you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don't agree with.
Having served in eleven Parliaments, it would be difficult to describe this as a maiden speech. It would be like Elizabeth Taylor appearing at her next wedding in a white gown.
An MP is the only job where you have 70,000 employers, and only one employee.
If ever I left the House of Commons it would be because I wanted to spend more time on politics.
Food movement organic food stores supplies health food products and facilitate with instrumental support in organic agriculture.
Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.
When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.
I have had the advantage of a radical Christian upbringing.
The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.
The people who have sacrificed their view in order to get to the top have very often left no footprints in the sands of time.
He referred to Aneurin Bevan as 'Urinal' Bevan. As for the working classes, they couldn't write their own names in shit on a lavatory wall. I said I thought they could.
I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!
Of course, Mao made his mistakes, because everybody does, but at least he allowed working people to smoke, even in the most trying circumstances, such as when, for one reason or another, they found themselves up before the firing squad.
The peace movement didn't stop the Iraq but I think that Blair would not be able to go along and support an Iranian war.
It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions... They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham.
No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this.
There may be a legal obligation to obey, but there will be no moral obligation to obey. When it comes to history, it will be the people who broke the law for freedom who will be remembered and honoured.
I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis of personal liberty.
I am a public library.
The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it -- a bit like Christians in the Church of England.
It is government policy to phase out subsidies to nationalised industries. In line with this, the government hopes that the coal industry will be able to operate without the need for assistance apart from social grants.
The Internet is only the street corner meeting on a big scale.
It is tempting to deny, but if you deny you confirm what you won't deny.
You have to try to build support around causes. It is uniting to campaign on a single issue, and it is never just a single issue; it's always more than that.
When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.
Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don't have the freedom to choose.
There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.
There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.
If one meets a powerful person -- Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates -- ask them five questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?
If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.
Gandhi and Nehru liberated us. By winning their freedom, they freed us from the ignorance and prejudice that lay behind the myth of Britain's imperial destiny.
I see myself as an old man and an unqualified teacher to the nation. I think being a teacher is probably the most important thing you can be in politics.
The uncut diaries are 16 million words. It's very tiring to do your diary every night before you go to bed.
Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said 'why don't you say you're giving up to devote more time to politics?'. And it is what I have done.
The exhaustion of old age is something people who are younger don't fully appreciate.
I'm not frightened about death. I don't know why, but I just feel that at a certain moment your switch is switched off, and that's it. And you can't do anything about it.
I've been a member of the Labour Party sixty five years, and I remain in it, but I think it's all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.
Someone comes every morning at nine o'clock to see if I am still alive. I do get lonely, yes, but I have the children who come and see me. I see all my children every week, and there are the grandchildren, too.
I've had a very full life, and I've enjoyed it very much. I've learned a great deal and feel indebted to all the people who have worked so hard.
My day rotates around my family. I am very lucky.
My filing system is messy but orderly.
The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.