Tony Benn

The Right Honourable Tony Benn PC
President of the Stop the War Coalition
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 September 2001
Vice President	Lindsey German
Preceded by	Office created
Secretary of State for Energy
In office 10 June 1975 – 4 May 1979
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson James Callaghan
Preceded by	Eric Varley
Succeeded by	David Howell
Secretary of State for Industry
In office 5 March 1974 – 10 June 1975
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Peter Walker (at DTI)
Succeeded by	Eric Varley
Chairman of the Labour Party
In office 20 September 1971 – 25 September 1972
Leader	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Ian Mikardo
Succeeded by	William Simpson
Minister of Technology
In office 4 July 1966 – 19 June 1970
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Frank Cousins
Succeeded by	Geoffrey Rippon
Postmaster General
In office 15 October 1964 – 4 July 1966
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Reginald Bevins
Succeeded by	Edward Short
Member of Parliament for Chesterfield
In office 1 March 1984 – 7 June 2001
Preceded by	Eric Varley
Succeeded by	Paul Holmes
Majority	24,633 (46.5%)
Member of Parliament for Bristol South East
In office 20 August 1963 – 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Malcolm St Clair
Succeeded by	Constituency Abolished
Majority	1,890 (3.5%)
In office 30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960
Preceded by	Stafford Cripps
Succeeded by	Malcolm St Clair
Majority	13,044 (39%)
Personal details
Born	Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn 3 April 1925 (1925-04-03) (age 86) Marylebone, London, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Caroline DeCamp (m. 1949–2000)
Children	Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, Joshua
Alma mater	New College, Oxford
Religion	Agnostic[1] - United Reformed Church[citation needed]
Website	Official website
Military service
Service/branch	Royal Air Force
Rank	Pilot Officer
Battles/wars	World War II

Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC (born 3 April 1925), 2nd Viscount Stansgate from 1960 to 1963, is a British Labour Party politician, a former MP and Cabinet Minister.

His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage^[2] was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963. In the Labour Government of 1964–1970 under Harold Wilson, he served first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as a notably "technocratic" Minister of Technology, retaining his seat in the cabinet. In the period when the Labour Party was in opposition, Benn served for a year as the Chairman of the Labour Party. In the Labour Government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet, initially serving as Secretary of State for Industry, before being made Secretary of State for Energy, retaining his post when James Callaghan replaced Wilson as Prime Minister. During the Labour Party's time in opposition during the 1980s, he was seen as the party's prominent figure on the left, and the term "Bennite" has come to be used in Britain for someone of a more radical, left-wing position.^[3]

Benn has come top in several polls as one of the most popular politicians in Britain.^[4] He has been described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office."^[5] Since leaving parliament, Benn has become more involved in the grass-roots politics of demonstrations and meetings, as opposed to parliamentary activities. He has been a vegetarian since the 1970s.

Biography

Early life and family

Benn was born in London on 3 April 1925.^[6] Benn's paternal grandfather was John Benn (a successful politician who had been created a baronet in 1914) and his father William Wedgwood Benn was a Liberal Member of Parliament who later crossed the floor to the Labour Party. He was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until 1931. He was elevated to the House of Lords, with the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1941; the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house.^[7] From 1945 to 1946, he was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.

Both his grandfathers, John Benn (who founded a publishing company)^[8] and Daniel Holmes, were also Liberal MPs (respectively, for Tower Hamlets, Devonport and Glasgow Govan).^[9] Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day thus dates back to his earliest years as a result of his family's profile; he met Ramsay MacDonald when he was five,^[10] David Lloyd George when he was twelve and Mahatma Gandhi in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.

Benn's mother Margaret Eadie (née Holmes) (1897–1991), was a dedicated theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women – in 1925 she was rebuked by Randall Thomas Davidson, then-Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.^[11]

Benn was a pupil at Westminster School and later studied at New College, Oxford where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn attempted to remove public references to his private education from Who's Who; in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details of his biography were omitted save for his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back his draft entry with everything else struck through.^[12] In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely.^[13] In October 1973 he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as "Mr Tony Benn" and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn".

Benn met US-born Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio) over tea at Worcester College in 1949 and nine days later he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa and Joshua, and ten grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a prominent career as an educationalist.^[14]

In July 1943, Benn joined the Royal Air Force.^[15] His father and brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF in 1943. Whilst holding the rank of pilot officer, Tony Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia.^[16]

Benn's children have also been active in politics; his first son Stephen served as an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary served as a councillor in London, and stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, finally becoming the Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He served as Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010. This makes him the third generation of his family to have sat in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn fought and ultimately lost the seat of East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010,^[17] becoming the Labour Party's youngest ever candidate in the process.^[18] Tony Benn is a first cousin once removed of the late actress Dame Margaret Rutherford.^[19]

Member of Parliament

Following his Second World War service as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was unexpectedly selected to succeed Sir Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health, and won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950.^[20] Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950^[21] Benn became the youngest MP, or "Baby of the House" for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later.^[22] He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.^[23]

Peerage reform

Benn's father had been created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Tony Benn as the heir to the peerage. He made several attempts to renounce the succession, but they were unsuccessful.^[23]

In November 1960, Viscount Stansgate died, and as a result Benn automatically became a peer and was thus prevented from sitting in the House of Commons. Insisting on his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, the voters of Bristol South-East re-elected him regardless. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.^[24]

Outside Parliament, Benn continued his campaign, and eventually the Conservative Government of the time accepted the need for a change in the law.^[25] The Peerage Act 1963, allowing renunciation of peerages, was given the Royal Assent and became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, at 6.22 pm that day. Malcolm St. Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his seating, then accepted the office of Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead, thereby disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation being impermissible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.^[23]

In government (1964–1970)

In the 1964 Government of Harold Wilson, Benn was appointed Postmaster General; during his time in that position, he oversaw the opening of what was then the UK's tallest building, the Post Office Tower, and the creations of the Postal Bus Service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps today.^[26] Benn also led the government's campaign to close down the many off-shore pirate radio stations of the time, a campaign that forms the centrepiece of the 2009 film The Boat That Rocked, and was responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill.^[27] By the time the bill became law in 1967, Benn had been promoted to the post of Minister of Technology, which included specific responsibility for overseeing the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. ^[28] Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives, and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, Benn campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

In government (1974–1979)

In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was appointed Secretary of State for Industry, where he set up worker cooperatives in struggling industries, the best known being at Meriden, which kept Triumph Motorcycles in production until 1983. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his ultimately unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's membership of the EEC. By his own admission in his diary (25 October 1977), Benn "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".^[29]

Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn entered the subsequent leadership contest and came fourth with 37 votes in the first ballot. Benn then withdrew from the second ballot and supported Michael Foot for the leadership, although James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the vote, Callaghan kept Benn as Energy Secretary. Later in the autumn of 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought to gain a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Benn publicly circulated the Cabinet minutes from the 1931 National Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald, which cut unemployment benefits in order to secure a loan from American bankers and resulted in the inadvertent splitting of the Labour Party. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward his "alternative economic strategy", which consisted of a siege economy. However this plan would later be rejected by the Cabinet.^[30]

Move to the Left

By the end of the 1970s, Benn had migrated to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn wrote:

As a minister, I experienced the power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government. Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes is minuscule. This power was revealed even more clearly in 1976 when the IMF secured cuts in our public expenditure. These lessons led me to the conclusion that the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum.^[31]

Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, economic planning, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party conference decisions by the Party leadership;^[32] he was vilified in the right-wing press, and his enemies implied that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of East European socialism.^[33] Conversely, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists. A survey of delegates at the Labour Conference of 1978 found that by large margins they supported both Benn for the leadership and many Bennite policies.^[34]

He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that Sinn Féin abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster. Sinn Féin argue that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevents its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution.^[35]

In opposition

In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would grant powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster and then they would abolish the House of Lords by creating one thousand peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause from the audience.^[36]

Tony Benn speaking at the Glastonbury Festival in 2008

In 1981, he stood for election against the incumbent Denis Healey for the post of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, disregarding the appeal from Michael Foot either to stand for the leadership, or to abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision with insistence that it was "not about personalities, but about policies." The contest was extremely closely fought in the summer of 1981, and Healey eventually won by a margin of barely 1%. The decision of several moderate left-wing MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain from supporting Benn triggered the split of the Campaign Group from the Left of the Tribune Group.^[37]

After Argentina had invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent and the Falklands were soon back in British control. In a subsequent debate in the Commons, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who, apparently unaware that Benn had served during the Second World War, stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".^[38]

In 1983, Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he subsequently lost the battle to stand in the new seat of Bristol South to Michael Cocks. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to Conservative candidate Jonathan Sayeed in what was perceived to be a shock result. He was selected for the next Labour seat to fall vacant, and was elected as MP for Chesterfield in a by-election after Eric Varley resigned his seat to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article "Benn on the Couch" which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.^[39] In the intervening period, since Benn's defeat in Bristol, Michael Foot had stepped down after the general election in June 1983 (which saw Labour return a mere 209 MPs) and was succeeded in October of that year by Neil Kinnock.^[40]

Benn was a prominent supporter of the 1984-1985 UK miners' strike and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. Some miners, however, considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly, that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been.^[41][42]

In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill in the Commons which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.^[43]

Benn later stood for election as Party Leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, and lost again, on this occasion by a substantial margin.^[44] During the Gulf War, he visited Baghdad to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.^[45] He was also one of the very few MPs to oppose the Kosovo War. In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and another general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, which involved abolishing the British Monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth"; in effect, a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading.^[46] He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain.^[47]

Retirement

Tony Benn about to join the March 2005 anti-war demonstration in London

Tony Benn did not stand at the 2001 general election; as he explained it, he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics".^[48] Along with Edward Heath, Benn was given the privilege of being able to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities by the Speaker. Shortly after his retirement, he was approached by the Stop the War Coalition, and was asked to become its President, an offer he accepted.^[45] He thus became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War on Iraq, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to again meet, and interview, Saddam Hussein. The interview was shown on British television.^[49] He also spoke out against the Iraq war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, attended by over 1 million people.^[50] In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.^[51]

He has toured with a one-man stage show and also appears a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.^[52] In 2002 he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. In October 2003, Benn was a guest of British Airways on the last-ever scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London.^[53] In June 2005, Benn was a panellist on a special edition of BBC1's Question Time. The special edition was edited entirely by a school age film crew selected by a BBC competition.^[54]

On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World, he presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission remain unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.^[55]

Tony Benn and Giles Fraser speaking at Levellers’ Day, Burford, 17 May 2008

On 27 September 2005, Benn was taken ill at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton and taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was to be kept in hospital for observation, but was described as being in a "comfortable condition".^[56] He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.^[57] In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time".^[58]

In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the start of the final Labour Conference with Tony Blair as Party Leader, with the aim of persuading the Labour Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards along with other politicians and journalists, including George Galloway and members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.^[59] In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility, and health care.

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews interviews: Tony Benn on U.K. politics

A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38.22% of the vote, beating Margaret Thatcher with 35.3% and five other contenders including Alex Salmond, Leader of the Scottish National Party; Clare Short, Independent MP; Neil Kinnock, previous Labour Party Leader; Norman Tebbit, previous Conservative Party Chairman and Shirley Williams, one of the 'gang of four' who founded the Social Democratic Party.^[4]

In the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Tony Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his ultimately unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty.^[60] In October 2007, at the age of 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Kensington and Chelsea Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the seat held by the Conservative Malcolm Rifkind.^[61][62] No election, however, was ultimately held in 2007, and the Kensington and Chelsea seat was abolished.

Benn on the cover of Dartford Living, Sept 2009

In September 2008, Benn appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear in a feature on a Doctor Who DVD.^[63] Also in 2008, Benn appeared on track 12 "Pay Attention to the Human" on Colin MacIntyre's The Water album.^[64]

At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying "If you are invaded you have a right to self defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"^[65]

In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the General Election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don’t think we were told the truth."^[66] He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and hadn't been liberalised by New Labour.^[66]

During the autumn of 2009, Tony Benn was again admitted into hospital and as a result of this, "An Evening with Tony Benn", scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall was cancelled.^[67] He resumed a tour of these shows in 2010. He has most recently performed his show "The Writing on the Wall" with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent (Sept 2011) as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St Mary's Season. ^[68] In July 2011 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University Of Glamorgan, Wales.^[69]

In November 2011, it was reported that Benn had moved out of his home in Holland Park Avenue, London and taken up residence in a smaller £750,000 flat nearby which benefits from a warden.^[70]

Diaries and biographies

Benn is a prolific diarist: eight volumes of his diaries have been published (the first six collected as ISBN 0-09-963411-2, the penultimate available as ISBN 0-09-941502-X). Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches (ISBN 1-904734-03-0) set to ambient groove.

He has also made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled 'The Benn Tapes', broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series of these have been played periodically on BBC Radio 7.^[71] A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011. Tony Benn: A Biography (ISBN 0-333-52558-2) A more recent 'semi-authorised' biography, with a foreword by Benn, was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (ISBN 978-0826464156). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (ISBN 978-0099471530), was published in 2004.

There are substantial essays on Benn in both the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen [ed], Politicos Publishing, 2001 (ISBN 978-1902301181) and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys [ed], I. B. Taurus Publishing, 2002 (ISBN 978-1860647437). Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 (ISBN 978-0141039817) to Tony Benn with: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".^[72]

Plaques

During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament as well as one in Highbury, North London (to commemorate the Peasant's Revolt of 1381).^[73]

Two of the three parliamentary plaque's are in the 'Suffragette's room' (next to the Central lobby).

The first was placed in 1995 and reads as follows:

"This plaque is dedicated/ with respect, gratitude and affection/ to the many hundreds of thousands of men and women/ who lived and worked on these islands/ and who devoted themselves to the advancement of/ freedom, civil liberties, social justice and democracy/ who campaigned for popular representation in Parliament

Including: Wat Tyler, John Ball, William Tyndale, Thomas More, The Levellers, John Lilburne, William Walwyn, The Diggers, Gerard Winstanley, Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Robert Owen, The Tolpuddle Martyrs, The Chartists, Keir Hardie, Annie Besant, Charles Bradlaugh, Robert Tressell, The Suffragettes and Constance Markievicz

And many others whose names have never/ been recorded in our history"

The second plaque was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.

The third plaque is dedicated to Suffragette Emily Wilding-Davison and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel within the Palace of Westminster where Davison is said to have hid during the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.^[74]

See also

• Labour Party
• Labour Representation Committee
• Socialist Campaign Group
• Stop the War Coalition

References

Bibliography

• Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976) ISBN 978-0851246338
• Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978) ISBN 978-0851242668
• Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
• Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Inst. for Workers' Control (1980) ISBN 978-0901740670
• Case for Party Democracy, Inst. for Workers' Control (1980) ISBN 978-0901740700
• Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980) ISBN 978-0140054897
• & Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981) ISBN 978-0224018784
• European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981) ISBN 978-0851243269
• Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982) ISBN 978-0860910572
• & Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
• Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004) ISBN 978-0826474001
• Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004) ISBN 978-0091799991
• Letters To My Grandchildren: Thoughts On The Future, Arrow Books (2010) ISBN 978-0099539094

Diaries

• Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963-67, Hutchinson (1987) ISBN 978-0091706609
• Office Without Power: Diaries 1968-72, Hutchinson (1988) ISBN 978-0091736477
• Against the Tide: Diaries 1973-76, Hutchinson (1989) ISBN 978-0091737757
• Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977-80, Hutchinson (1990) ISBN 978-0091743215
• The End of an Era: Diaries 1980-90, Hutchinson (1992) ISBN 978-0091748579
• Years of Hope: Diaries 1940-62, Hutchinson (1994) ISBN 978-0091785345
• The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940-90, Hutchinson (1995) ISBN 978-0091792237
• Free at Last!: Diaries 1991-2001, Hutchinson (2002) ISBN 978-0091793524
• More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007, Hutchinson (2007) ISBN 978-0099517054

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tony Benn

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tony Benn

• Tony Benn blog of quotes and speeches
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn
• Unofficial Tony Benn site with extensive interview, articles, audio and visual
• 'Face-to-Face with Tony Benn'. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust
• Tony Benn's interview with The Third Estate.
• Andrew Roth. Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP, The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
• Guardian web guide to the veteran leftwinger Tony Benn
• Tony Benn interview for Leftfield appearances at the Glastonbury Festival
• Tony Benn. Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line, The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
• Amy Goodman. Interview with Tony Benn: How Britain secretly helped Israel build its nuclear arsenal, Democracy Now!, 10 March 2006.
• Benn in the 1960s as seen by Private Eye
• Audio interview with The Guardian.
• His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College
• Interview with Tony Benn - Radio France Internationale - 28 March 2008 - 6 minute audio - Ahead of G20 marches, London
• Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime" - video report by Democracy Now!

v d e Second Wilson Cabinet Tony Benn • James Callaghan • Barbara Castle • Anthony Crosland • Lord Elwyn-Jones • Michael Foot • Denis Healey • Roy Jenkins • Harold Lever • Roy Mason • Bob Mellish • John Morris • Fred Mulley • Stanley Orme • Lord Peart • Reg Prentice • Merlyn Rees • Bill Rodgers • Willie Ross • Lord Shepherd • Peter Shore • Edward Short • John Silkin • Eric Varley • Shirley Williams • Harold Wilson

v d e Callaghan cabinet Joel Barnett · Tony Benn · Albert Booth · James Callaghan · Anthony Crosland · Edmund Dell · Lord Elwyn-Jones · David Ennals · Michael Foot · Roy Hattersley · Denis Healey · Roy Jenkins · Harold Lever · Roy Mason · Bruce Millan · John Morris · Fred Mulley · Stanley Orme · David Owen · Lord Peart · Reg Prentice · Merlyn Rees · Bill Rodgers · Lord Shepherd · Peter Shore · John Silkin · John Smith · Eric Varley · Shirley Williams

v d e Energy Secretaries of the United Kingdom Minister of Fuel, Light and Power Gwilym Lloyd George · Manny Shinwell · Hugh Gaitskell · Philip Noel-Baker Minister of Co-ordination of Transport, Fuel and Power Frederik Leathers Minister of Fuel and Power Geoffrey Lloyd · Aubrey Jones Minister of Power Percy Mills · Richard Wood · Frederick Erroll Minister of Technology Frank Cousins · Tony Benn Secretary of State for Trade and Industry John Davies · Peter Walker Secretary of State for Energy Lord Carrington · Eric Varley · Tony Benn · David Howell · Nigel Lawson · Peter Walker · Cecil Parkinson · John Wakeham President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Michael Heseltine · Ian Lang · Margaret Beckett · Peter Mandelson · Stephen Byers · Patricia Hewitt · Alan Johnson · Alistair Darling Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform John Hutton Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband · Chris Huhne · Ed Davey

v d e Presidents of the Board of Trade of the United Kingdom Shaftesbury Bridgewater Stamford Weymouth Stamford Winchilsea Guilford Berkeley Suffolk Holderness Fitzwalter Monson Halifax Sandys Townshend Shelburne Hillsborough Dartmouth Hillsborough Nugent Hillsborough Dartmouth Sackville Carlisle Grantham Sydney Liverpool Montrose Auckland Bathurst Clancarty Robinson Huskisson Grant Vesey-Fitzgerald Herries Auckland Thomson Baring Thomson Labouchere Ripon Gladstone Dalhousie Clarendon Labouchere Henley Cardwell Stanley Henley Dnoughmore Gibson Northcote Richmond Bright Parkinson-Fortescue Adderley Sandon Chamberlain Richmond Stanhope Mundella Stanley Hicks Beach Mundella Bryce Ritchie Balfour Salisbury Lloyd George Churchill Buxton Burns Runciman Stanley Geddes Horne Baldwin Cunliffe-Lister Graham Cunliffe-Lister Runciman Stanley Duncan Lyttelton Duncan Llewellin Dalton Lyttelton Cripps Wilson Shawcross Thorneycroft Eccles Maulding Erroll Heath Jay Crosland Mason Noble Davies Walker Benn Varley Joseph Jenkin Shore Dell Smith Nott Biffen Cockfield Parkinson Tebbit Brittan Channon Young Ridley Lilley Heseltine Lang Beckett Mandelson Byers Hewitt Johnson Darling Hutton Mandelson Cable