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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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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
Democracy
Eleven
Rich
Inevitably
Poor
Hitler
Interesting
Bought
Read
Remove
Kampf
Book
Leads
Mein
Work
Vote
Marxism
Outside
Privileges

More quotes by Tony Benn

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The Marxist analysis has got nothing to do with what happened in Stalin's Russia: it's like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain.
Tony Benn
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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 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 police are controlled by the whites, the media are controlled by the whites, the army's controlled by the whites, what hope is there for change? Administration changes from underneath.
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 quickest way to get to the top in society probably is to be a Blair Babe now. And then all of a sudden you find you're invited to parties. I don't want to be cynical, because I'm not. But I've seen it happen to so many people who move from the left to the right so damn quickly.
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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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
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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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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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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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There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.
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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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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When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.
Tony Benn
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An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.
Tony Benn
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Although socialism is widely held by the establishment to be outdated, the things that are most popular in British society today are little pockets of socialism, where areas of life have been excluded from the crude operation of market forces and are protected for the benefit of the community
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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The peace movement here is the biggest thing in human history.
Tony Benn
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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