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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

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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
Empire
Ran
Connection
Anywhere
Democracy
Born
Mean
Imperialism

More quotes by Tony Benn

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Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten
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The peace movement here is the biggest thing in human history.
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I don't want to commit myself in advocating a definite republican constitution which will get bogged down with the question of who would elect the President and when.
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My alternative to American superpower is the UN and I might add when China becomes the worlds greatest superpower you will need it too.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis for political liberty. Every time I see a homeless person living in a cardboard box in London, I see that person as a victim of market forces. Everytime I see a pensioner who cannot manage, I know that he is a victim of market forces
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An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.
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There is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle. To be fought, over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.
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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I'm interested in language. We used to call it the War Office. Then it became the Ministry of Defence. We used to talk about the hydrogen bomb, now we talk about a deterrent. And the language is very cleverly constructed to give the impression that it's not what it is.
Tony Benn
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There may be a legal obligation to obey, but there will be no moral obligation to obey. When it comes to history, it will be the people who broke the law for freedom who will be remembered and honoured.
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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The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.
Tony Benn
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I'm a democrat - I don't support Bush, I don't support Blair, I don't support Bin Laden.
Tony Benn
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The one thing that is absolutely essential is that there shouldn't be any governmental control [of the media] directly or indirectly.
Tony Benn