Join the new world

I was fully intending to write out my manifesto for Party President of the PCP today, However instead of my usual over embellished rambling I will just do a few bullet points in my messages to the party instead, because today a truly great man passed away and it would be wrong to not pay tribute to such an inspirational figure.

I just hope I can go some way towards doing his memory justice.



Early Life

Born in London in 1925, Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, to a family with history as Liberal MPs until his father moved from the Liberal Party to the Labour Party in 1928, whilst his mother was a theologian and the founder of the Congregational Federation which as a feminist movement campaigned for the ordination of women.

Benn was surrounded by leading political figures from a young age. Meeting David Lloyd George when he was 12 and Mahatma Gandhi when he was 6.

In 1943 Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force, which his father and brother (who would die in an accident whilst serving) were already serving in.

He met his future wife Carlone Middleton DeCamp in 1949 and just nine days later proposed to her on a park bench in Oxford. He would later buy the bench from the City Council and have it installed in the garden of their home.



Member of Parliament

Following the Second World War Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was unexpectedly selected to succeed Sir Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950.

Benn's father had been made Viscount Stansgate in 1942 by Winston Churchill as he increased the number of Labour peers.

Originally Tony's older brother was in line to inherit the peerage, however he was killed in an accident while serving in the second world war. This meant that Tony was now the heir to the title, He made several attempts to renounce his inheritance of it but was unsuccessful.

In 1960 his father died and Benn was automatically made a Viscount Stansgate and as such was no longer eligible for the House of Commons. His removal from the House of Commons meant that a by-election was held for his seat, Benn had contempt for the unelected and undemocratic nature of the House of Lords and maintained he had a right to abandon his Peerage and to run in the election, which he did and won. However an Election court found that the voters were fully aware of Benn's disqualification and gave the seat to the Conservative runner up.

Benn kept campaigning for his right to renounce his Peerage and in the Peerage Act of 1963 he succeeded. He was the first peer to renounce his title just 22 minutes after it was made lawful to do so. Eventually returning to the Commons after winning a by-election in august of the same year.

During Benn's early years in Government he was seen more as a soft left and technocratic member, not yet the 'firebrand' of the left he would later be known for. He was made Postmaster General in the Wilson government of 1964 and oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the tallest building in the UK, and the creation of the Girobank.

He also proposed issuing stamps without the sovereigns head, but was met by oppostion from the Queen, this resulted in the smaller silhouette that is now seen on many stamps.



In the Labour Government of 1974 Benn was Secretary of State for Industry, he increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and set up worker cooperatives to motivate and reform struggling industries, the best known being at Meriden, outside Birmingham, which kept Triumph Motorcycles in production until 1983.

In 1975 he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany.

Moving to the Left

By the end of the 1970s, Benn had migrated to the left wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn attributed his move to the left to four lessons:
1) how "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments";
2) the centralised nature of the Labour Party allowing to the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom";
3) "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";
4) the power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege.

"Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes by the unions is minuscule. This power was revealed even more clearly in 1976 when the IMF secured cuts in our public expenditure. These lessons led me to the conclusion that the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum"

Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions.

In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and abolish the House of Lords by creating one thousand peers and then abolishing the peerage.
Those who remember TUP and PCP's dismantling of the HoL will see a major similarity here 😉

Thatcher is the Problem

Now I must admit that I have tried to write this rather than copy and paste but for a man who has done so much that has proved hard and having now copied the more detailed elements from his Wikipedia entry I'd suggest that anyone who wants to read further into his career as a politician do so here. So that instead I can go onto his campaigning and what he represented to myself and many others



Tony Benn left Parliament in 2001 after deciding not to run at the General Election. His wife would later make a quip about which Tony later recalle😛

"Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said ‘why don’t you say you’re giving up to devote more time to politics?’. And it is what I have done."

Which highlights precisely what he intended to do, He took up campaigning and speaking on behalf of causes he held close to his heart. And soon was offered the position of president for the Stop the War Coalition.



He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". and argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.

A great message of Peace from Tony Benn

One thing is for certain about Tony Benn, that those of all political persuasions who have paid tribute and claim to have admired the man for who he was, His unbending convictions and his clear love of life and it's sanctity are almost certainly not just paying lip service.

Because whatever your opinions it was always clear that he spoke his mind, wore his heart on his sleeve and did everything out of a true sense of ethics. He refused to remain silent, even when his opinions would be seen as unpopular such as his support for a unified Ireland, but from everyone who met him, His opponents included, come only words of respect and admiration.

Tony Benn was a one of a kind and a kind that is very much needed today. A politician who sought to represent and not just attain power, Whose convictions and not lobbyists guided him.

He is truly an icon of the British Left but far more importantly an embodiment of principle and champion of Human Life.


Rest in Peace Tony Benn

(ps. Yes I realise this isn't really about eRepublik however Tony Benn was a true inspiration for me and many others and I only hope that a small part of his faith and tenacity are embedded in how I act on this game too, So consider this an insight into a man who is seen as a guiding light of the Left in the eUK or at least for myself 🙂