Quote

There is no connection between imperialism and democracy. I mean when we ran an Empire which we did when I was born, there was no democracy anywhere.

Tony Benn

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Mean
Imperialism
Empire
Ran
Connection
Anywhere
Democracy
Born

More quotes by Tony Benn

Image
If you're going to make sense of politics you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don't agree with.
Tony Benn
Image
Bush is actually encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons because the one thing I do know is if Iran did have nuclear weapons they wouldn't be threatening them.
Tony Benn
Image
I believe the more difficult the circumstances, the more people will be inclined to trust those in charge at the moment.
Tony Benn
Image
If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child
Tony Benn
Image
An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.
Tony Benn
Image
If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?
Tony Benn
Image
People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don't vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.
Tony Benn
Image
Workers are not going to be fobbed off with a few shares...or by a carbon copy of the German system of co-determination.
Tony Benn
Image
The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.
Tony Benn
Image
I think to understand how the democratic process works is the most important thing, so people don't get frightened by it, and get put off, and give up.
Tony Benn
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Remember, imperialism is always presented as humanitarian: the white man's burden, the cross going round the world, the poor benighted natives, the sun never sets. . . So you have to be very careful about humanitarianism.
Tony Benn
Image
I'd rather die on my feet making a speech than die of Alzheimer's - and that's what I'm planning to do.
Tony Benn
Image
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
Image
The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.
Tony Benn
Image
I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.
Tony Benn
Image
The one thing that is absolutely essential is that there shouldn't be any governmental control [of the media] directly or indirectly.
Tony Benn
Image
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
Image
It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions... They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham.
Tony Benn