Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, originally known as Anthony Wedgwood Benn or Wedgie Benn, but later as Tony Benn, was a British politician who was a Member of Parliamentfor 47 years between the 1950 and 2001 general elections and a Cabinet minister in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1960s and 1970s. Originally a "moderate", he was identified as being on the party's hard left from the early 1980s, and was widely seen as a key...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth3 April 1925
years library paper
If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.
politics peers persistent
I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner
queens advice crowns
If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp, what would happen if she rejected the advice of the Prime Minister on a major matter? If the Crown personally can reject advice, then, of course, the whole democratic facade turns out to be false
jam politics tomorrow
Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten
suicide war differences
There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.
ideas two trying
I try to operate on two unconnected levels. One on the practical level of action in which I am extremely cautious and conservative. The second is the realm of ideas where I try to be very free
fundamentals politics excuse
The crisis that we inherit when we come to power will be the occasion for fundamental change and not the excuse for postponing it
mean self community
Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation
politics benefits strategy
In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once
jesus names done
It is wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his
religious other-worlds politics
Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religious faiths
party taken psychology
It would be as unthinkable to try to construct the Labour Party without Marx as it would to be to establish university faculties of astronomy,anthropology or psychology without permitting the study of Copernicus, Darwin or Freud, and still expect such faculties to be taken seriously
funny strong humor
I am on the right wing of the middle of the road and with a strong radical bias.
hate men thinking
When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?