British politician (1925-2014)
It is no use blaming working people or the unions if they have to work in ancient factories with obsolete equipment producing old-fashioned goods at unecomonic prices and earning low wages as well. Working people not only are not responsible for the weakness of British manufacturing industry. They have hitherto been denied the tools and tackle that they needed to put it right.
TONY BENN
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speech in the House of Commons, February 17, 1975
The key to any progress is to ask the question why? All the time. Why is that child poor? Why was there a war? Why was he killed? Why is he in power? And of course questions can get you into a lot of trouble, because society is trained by those who run it, to accept what goes on. Without questions we won't make any progress at all.
TONY BENN
interview, Creating Freedom
Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.
TONY BENN
speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool, October 2, 1972
I think that having 24 people around the Cabinet table whose future depends upon maintaining the good will of one man is fundamentally undemocratic and it would be far better if Cabinet ministers were accountable to the Parliamentary Labour Party.
TONY BENN
The Times, February 11, 1980
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.
TONY BENN
Yorkshire Post, November 22, 1976
More and more communists are coming to realize that socialism without democracy is no socialism at all.... I believe that the next decade will see the growth in democratic socialism against the ideas of monetarism and corporation.
TONY BENN
speech to the European Republic Committee at the American Club in London, October 25, 1978
My legs are very wobbly now. I've always been slightly unsteady on my pins, but I do find myself swaying about a bit and I hope it isn't anything serious, because if I couldn't walk, I would be in a jam. But there will come a moment when I realise my political life is over. My hearing is absolutely completely gone! It's lovely, in the sense that I go along the street and I don't hear any traffic noise, but I don't hear anybody saying anything.
TONY BENN
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries
I never remember politics being quite as unpleasant as this before; but maybe this is what life is like at the top.
TONY BENN
The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990
Workers now have, through interdependence, enormous negative power to dislocate the system. Workers' control--if it means the power to plan their own work and to hire and fire the immediate plant management just as M.P.s are now hired and fired by the voters--converts that existing negative power into positive and constructive power. It thus creates the basis of common interest with local managers struggling to make a success of the business and to get devolved authority from an over-centralized bureaucratic board of management now perhaps sitting on them from above.
TONY BENN
"Towards workers' control", The Times, September 5, 1970
It is an indisputable historical fact ... that Marxism has, from the earliest days, always been openly accepted by the party as one of many sources of inspiration within our movement, along with--though much less influential than--Christian Socialism, Fabianism, Owenism, trade unionism, or even radical Liberalism. Marxism is not synonymous with communism and it is not true that there is growing up in the Labour Party a dominant group which believes in violent revolution, the one-party state and suppression of democratic rights.
TONY BENN
statement in defense of Andy Bevan, a Marxist who had been appointed Labour's National Youth Officer, The Times, December 16, 1976
Office is something that builds up a man only if he is somebody in his own right.
TONY BENN
diary, April 12, 1976
An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.
TONY BENN
interview with Michael Moore, Sicko
When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.
TONY BENN
Independent Radio News, November 12, 1976
Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don't have the freedom to choose.
TONY BENN
interview with Michael Moore, Sicko
Through talk, we tamed kings, restrained tyrants, averted revolution.
TONY BENN
attributed, The Changing Anatomy of Britain
If you file your waste-paper basket for 50 years, you have a public library.
TONY BENN
The Daily Telegraph, March 5, 1994
For those without personal wealth or political authority a trade union card and a ballot paper are the only two routes to political power.
TONY BENN
Arguments for Democracy
Middle class Labour leaders are recaptured by the establishment when they die.
TONY BENN
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries, 1963-67
Secrecy in decision-making does not occur by accident or default. It is because knowledge is power, and no government willingly gives up power to the Commons, the public, or anyone else. Open government would disclose more about the processes of decision-making, including the workings of the Cabinet committee system, reveal the roles of officials and advisers, and involve both admitting and encouraging pressure upon ministers.... If parliamentary democracy is, as I believe, a unique system of government, partly because it allows us to learn from our own mistakes in time to correct them, the raw material of that experience must be made available in time to use it for that purpose.
TONY BENN
speech to a Press Gallery luncheon, February 14, 1977
Freedom is defended by the ballot box and not by the Division Lobby. If the Liberal Party now says that freedom rests in Parliament instead of seeing itself as the guardian of freedom outside Parliament, no wonder it is a tiny minority.
TONY BENN
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968-72