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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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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
Anything
Zero
Body
Possibly
Lovely
Ambition
Personal
Age
Experience
Peerage
Government
Corrupt

More quotes by Tony Benn

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When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.
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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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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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The crisis that we inherit when we come to power will be the occasion for fundamental change and not the excuse for postponing it
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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
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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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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.
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Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten
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Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation...
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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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It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.
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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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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.
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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.
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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
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I did not enter the Labour Party 47 years ago to have our manifesto written by Dr Mori, Dr Gallup and Mr Harris
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
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The Tory party is the enemy of democracy.
Tony Benn
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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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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