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
deny tempting ifs
It is tempting to deny, but if you deny you confirm what you won't deny.
running office intellectual
Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent demands of running their departments. On the whole, a period in high office consumers intellectual capital; it does not create it....The less ministers know at the outset, the more dependent they are on the only sources of available knowledge; the permanent officials.
encouragement league people
Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.
diaries diary million tiring
The uncut diaries are 16 million words. It's very tiring to do your diary every night before you go to bed.
business devote family giving parliament people spend time wife
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.
record recorded
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.
favour life means
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.
ashamed believed life
Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.
accept age breakfast energy horrified morning sit sleeping wake
Age does take it out of you, and I haven't the energy I had before. Sometimes I have breakfast and sit in this chair, and I wake up and it is lunchtime. In the past, the idea of sleeping through a morning would have horrified me, but you have to accept the limitations that old age imposes on you.
family
My day rotates around my family. I am very lucky.
deal enjoyed full great indebted life people worked
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.
death frightened switch switched
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.
romantic suppose
I think if you're going to be committed to doing anything, you really have to care about it, and I suppose that is a romantic idea.
build
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.