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
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.
argument nuclear principles stand treaty uphold
We would be told that it had been done to uphold the principles of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) - an argument that does not stand up to a moment's examination,