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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

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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
White
Humanitarian
Remember
Presented
Going
Sets
Always
Round
Never
Cross
Benighted
World
Burden
Humanitarianism
Careful
Natives
Poor
Imperialism

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The New York Times said, There are two superpowers in the world: the United States and the world peace movement.
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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.
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There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.
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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.
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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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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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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
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It is obvious I shall have to abandon my hopes of getting the Queen's head off the stamps.
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I've made every mistake - but mistakes are how you learn.
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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.
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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.
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Anyone from abroad will tell you that it is the class system that really lies at the root of our problems, economic and industrial. The House of Lords symbolises that.
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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.
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Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.
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The way a government treats refugees is very instructive.
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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.
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I'd rather die on my feet making a speech than die of Alzheimer's - and that's what I'm planning to do.
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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.
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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.
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If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.
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