British statesman, born in London, UK, the son of Viscount Stansgate. He studied at Oxford, and became a Labour MP (195060). He was debarred from the House of Commons on succeeding to his father's title, but was able to renounce it in 1963 having fought a campaign to introduce a law allowing such an action, and was re-elected to parliament the same year. He was postmaster-general (19646), minister of technology (196670), and assumed responsibility for the ministry of aviation (1967) and ministry of power (1969). He was Opposition spokesman on trade and industry (19704), and on Labour's return to government became secretary of state for industry, minister for posts and telecommunications, and secretary of state for energy. Representing the left wing of Labour opinion, he unsuccessfully stood for the deputy leadership of the party in 1981. He lost his seat in the general election of 1983, but returned to represent Chesterfield from 1984 until he stepped down at the general election in 2001. He unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the party leadership in 1988. Among his many publications on politics is The Benn Diaries 194090 (1995).
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (born April 3, 1925), known as Tony Benn, formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, is a British politician on the left of the Labour Party. The term "Bennite", generally understood to mean a radical left-wing position of corporatist but compassionate socialism, was derived from Benn's name.
Family background
His paternal grandfather was Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet and his father was the 1st Viscount Stansgate; In October 1973 he announced on BBC radio that he wished to be known as "Mr. Tony Benn". His book Speeches from 1974 is credited to Tony Benn, but much of the media persisted with Anthony Wedgwood Benn into the late 1980s. He was frequently known to the public as Wedgwood Benn or "Wedgy Benn", the latter usually with pejorative connotations.
Tony Benn was taught to believe that the greatest sins in life were to waste time and money. His father William Wedgwood Benn was a Liberal MP who defected to Labour and was later elevated to the House of Lords with the title of 1st Viscount Stansgate. Both his grandfathers Sir John Williams Benn (who founded the family publishing house) and Daniel Holmes were also Liberal MPs (respectively, for St. George's, Tower Hamlets, Devonport and Glasgow Govan).
He was a pupil at Westminster School and studied at New College, Oxford during which time he was elected as President of the Oxford Union. When he was 12 Benn met Lloyd-George.
Benn met US-born Caroline Middleton DeCamp (Born 13 October 1926) (from Cincinnati, Ohio, daughter of a lawyer) over tea at Worcester College in 1949 and nine days later he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Caroline Benn died of Cancer on 22 November 2000 aged 74 after a career as a prominent educationalist.
His children have also been active in politics and his son Hilary is a Labour MP and the current Secretary of State for International Development.
Tony Benn was a cousin of the late actress, Dame Margaret Rutherford.
Political career
Following his World War II service as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time and nicknamed Benn "Jimmy" from knowing him at Oxford University. In 1951 Benn became the youngest MP, or "Baby of the House". Benn in the 1950's was an MP with middle-of-the-road or soft left views with regards.
Peerage reform
Benn's father had been created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill offered to increase the number of Labour Peers; at this time Benn's older brother Michael was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However Michael was later killed on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir to a peerage.
In November 1960, Benn's father died and as a result he was prevented from sitting in the House of Commons. Still insisting on his right to abandon his unwelcome peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in the by-election caused by his succession. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and gave the seat to the Conservative runner up in the by-election, Malcolm St Clair, ironically the son of a peer too.
Outside Parliament Benn continued his campaign, and eventually the Conservative government accepted the need for a change in the law. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, at 6.22 p.m. that day. St. Clair had already given an undertaking that he would respect the wishes of the people of Bristol if Benn became eligible to take his seat again, and therefore took the Chiltern Hundreds immediately. Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on August 20.
In government (1964-1970)
In the 1960s government of Harold Wilson he became Postmaster General;
Labour lost the 1970 general election to Edward Heath's Conservatives. Heath applied to join the European Economic Community and Benn campaigned for a referendum on Britain's membership.
In government (1974-1979): the move to the left
In the Labour government of 1974 he became Secretary of State for Industry, but in 1975 he was moved to Secretary of State for Energy, following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC. By his own admission in his diary (25 October 1977), Benn "loathed" the EEC;
Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in 1976. Benn entered the leadership contest but gained only 37 votes in the first ballot, coming fourth. Benn then withdrew from the second ballot and supported Michael Foot for the leadership but James Callaghan won instead. Benn circulated amongst Ministers the Cabinet minutes from the 1931 minority Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald which cut unemployment benefits to secure a loan from American bankers and resulted in splitting the Labour Party. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward his "alternative economic strategy", which consisted of a siege economy.
By the end of the 1970s Benn had migrated to the left-wing of the Labour Party. Benn wrote, "As a minister, I experienced the power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government. Benn's philosophy became known as "Bennism", which consisted of a form of syndicalism, economic planning, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party conference decisions by the Party leadership. Benn was vilified in the press and his enemies implied a Benn-led Labour government would implement a type of East European socialism. Conversely, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists. A survey of Labour Conference delegates of 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership and many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the reunification of Ireland, although he has recently suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that Sinn Féin abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster.
In opposition
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980 Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour government would do. Benn received a tumultuous applause from the audience.
In 1981 he stood for election against the incumbent Denis Healey as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, disregarding the appeal from party leader Michael Foot either to stand for the leadership or to abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision with an insistence that it was "not about personalities but about policies." The decision of several moderate left wing MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain from supporting Benn triggered the split of the Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group. After Argentina had invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982 Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands.
Benn's Bristol South-East constituency was abolished by boundary changes in 1983, and he lost the selection battle to stand in the safe seat of Bristol South to Michael Cocks. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn fought and was defeated in Bristol East (UK Parliament constituency) by Conservative candidate Jonathan Sayeed. As the darling of Labour activists it was not surprising that he was selected for the first Labour seat to fall vacant, and he was elected as MP for Chesterfield in a by-election the following year when Eric Varley resigned his seat to head Coalite. In the intervening period, however, another leadership election took place which Neil Kinnock won, and which Benn was not able to contest because he was not an MP.
His support for the 1984-1985 miners' strike in general and NUM leader Arthur Scargill in particular resulted in much hostility from the conservative press. At the same time, some amongst the miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have led to problems during the strike: firstly, they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions;
He stood for election as Party Leader in 1988 and was defeated again.
Retirement
In 2001 he retired from Parliament but remains involved in politics. With Edward Heath, Benn was given the privilege of being able to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities by the Speaker. Benn claimed that his retirement allowed him to "devote more time to politics", suggesting that for him 'real politics' is about struggle rather than parliamentary procedure. In October 2003, Benn was a guest of British Airways on the last-ever scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005 Benn was a panellist on a special edition of BBC1's 'Question Time' (shown 30 June 2005).
On June 21, 2005 Benn presented a show on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series 'Big Ideas That Changed The World', he presented a left wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the 'wallet to the ballot'. On September 27, 2005 Benn was taken ill at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton and taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head.
In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" Demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Conference under Tony Blair started;
Aphorisms
He is known for saying (in connection with his placing of a plaque in memory of Emily Davison in the House of Commons) "Never ask the authorities for permission - it takes up so much of your time!"
Diaries and other works
Tony Benn is a prolific diarist: seven volumes of his diaries have been published (the first six collected as ISBN 0-09-963411-2, the latest available as ISBN 0-09-941502-X). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches (ISBN 1-904734-03-0) set to ambient groove.
He has also made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement.
A 'semi-authorised' biography, with a foreword by Benn, was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books.
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