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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
Library
Public
Politics

More quotes by 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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If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child
Tony Benn
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If ever I left the House of Commons it would be because I wanted to spend more time on politics.
Tony Benn
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I have had the advantage of a radical Christian upbringing
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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Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.
Tony Benn
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When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.
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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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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The peace movement here is the biggest thing in human history.
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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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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When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.
Tony Benn
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When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?
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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Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religious faiths
Tony Benn
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The present combination of corporate or commercial control theoretically answerable to politically appointed Boards of Governors is not in any sense a democratic enough procedure to control the power the broadcasters have.
Tony Benn
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Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten
Tony Benn
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It would be as unthinkable to try to construct the Labour Party without Marx as it would to be to establish university faculties of astronomy,anthropology or psychology without permitting the study of Copernicus, Darwin or Freud, and still expect such faculties to be taken seriously
Tony Benn
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The peace movement didn't stop the Iraq but I think that Blair would not be able to go along and support an Iranian war.
Tony Benn