Tony Benn, bogeyman to some, beacon of hope and light to many

Among the most striking things about Tony Benn was his friendship with Enoch Powell. They entered the House together in 1950 and became regular presenters on The Week in Westminster before falling out over ‘rivers of blood’ and then making up. For Benn, politicians were ‘weathercocks’ or ‘signposts’, and Powell, like himself, was the latter.

This new collection of speeches and articles assembled by his daughter in the centenary of his birth, combines both the ancient history of his left-wingery and the ongoing relevance of his signposts. Melissa Benn’s intention has been to ‘lay to rest a few myths’ about her father and the left and to inspire a new generation of radicals to maintain the barricades. Regardless of whether these goals are achieved, the book unquestionably serves to remind us that ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’ (Kingsley Amis, February 1974) was one of the most thoughtful, kind, entertaining and appealing politicians of the postwar period.

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The 36 short pieces give us a radical almost entirely committed to the people and their ultimate right to be collective masters of the constitution and the state. Benn’s was a quasi-Whiggish disposition which saw, from the mid-century on, that much of the British ancien régime was doomed to die and, if the struggle was won, be replaced by a more democratic, egalitarian future. (Like many prophets, he was right in part.)

That love of democracy, however, could be overridden by his desire for post–imperialism, peace and multilateralism. He opposed military action to free the Falklanders in 1982, when negotiation would almost certainly have left them occupied by a junta. He rejected the majority wishes of Ulster when, in 1987, he argued to ‘terminate British jurisdiction in Northern Ireland’.