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I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner

Tony Benn

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Tony Benn
Age: 88 †
Born: 1925
Born: April 3
Died: 2014
Died: March 14
Autobiographer
Diarist
Former Member Of The European Parliament
Politician
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn
Politics
Commoner
Commoners
Peer
Reluctant
Persistent
Peers

More quotes by Tony Benn

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The Civil Service is a bit like a rusty weathercock. It moves with opinion then it stays where it is until another wind moves it in a different direction
Tony Benn
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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.
Tony Benn
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Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation...
Tony Benn
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If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realisation that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented.
Tony Benn
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Democracy is not just voting every 5 years and watching 'Big Brother' in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say where we live and work
Tony Benn
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If you read Mein Kampf, Hitler's book, which I have outside, I bought it when I was eleven, Hitler said, democracy inevitably leads to Marxism - now you work that one out. It's so interesting that when the poor have the vote they will use it to remove the privileges of the rich.
Tony Benn
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If I were the American President I would rather be popular than have the power the destroy the world because however many puppets they have all over the Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so on - they haven't got support from the people.
Tony Benn
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The Establishment decided Thatcher's ideas were safer with a strong Blair government than with a weak Major government. We are given all these personalities to choose between to disguise the fact that the policies are the same.
Tony Benn
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The New York Times said, There are two superpowers in the world: the United States and the world peace movement.
Tony Benn
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I believe the more difficult the circumstances, the more people will be inclined to trust those in charge at the moment.
Tony Benn
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Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.
Tony Benn
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Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.
Tony Benn
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No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this
Tony Benn
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The First World War created the Second World War because that was a war between three grandsons of Queen Victoria: The King of England, the Kaiser and the Tsar married Queen Victoria's granddaughter. And that triggered Communism in Russia and Fascism in Germany and led to the Second World War.
Tony Benn
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It's lovely to be old. I've got age, experience and zero personal ambition. No body could corrupt me by anything: possibly a job in the government, a peerage, a quango, I don't want any of it.
Tony Benn
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I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so.
Tony Benn
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When Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party, he said, New Labour is a new political party - that was the phrase he used, and I'm so glad he said it because he set up his own party and I'm not a member of it.
Tony Benn
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When you get to No 10, you've climbed there on a little ladder called 'the status quo'. And when you are there, the status quo looks very good
Tony Benn
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I opposed the Suez war, I opposed the Falklands war. I opposed the Libyan bombing and I opposed the Gulf war and I never believed that any of those principled arguments lost a single vote - indeed, I think they gained support though that was not why you did it. What has been lacking in Labour politics over a long period is a principled stand
Tony Benn
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It is obvious I shall have to abandon my hopes of getting the Queen's head off the stamps.
Tony Benn