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The way change occurs to begin with, if you come up with a good idea, like heathcare, you're ignored. If you go on you must be mad, absolutely stark-staring bonkers. If you go on after that you're dangerous. Then, if the pressure keeps up there's a pause. And then you can't find anyone at the top who doesn't claim to have thought of it in the first place. That's how progress is made.
Tony Benn
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Having served for nearly half a century in the House of Commons, I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so.
Tony Benn
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The key to any progress is to ask the question why? All the time. Why is that child poor? Why was there a war? Why was he killed? Why is he in power? And of course questions can get you into a lot of trouble, because society is trained by those who run it, to accept what goes on. Without questions we won't make any progress at all.
Tony Benn
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My Great-grandfather was a Congregational Minister and my Mother was a Bible scholar, and I was brought up on the Bible, that the story of the Bible was conflict between the kings who had power, and the prophets who preached righteousness. And I was taught to believe in the prophets, got me into a lot of trouble. And my Dad said to me when I was young, "Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone, Dare to have a purpose firm, Dare to let it (be) known."
Tony Benn
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The British House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.
Tony Benn
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The [pay] policy is principally designed to hold down wages rather than to check inflation. Inflation is being used as an excuse to destroy free trade union bargaining.
Tony Benn
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The engineers are taking their stand on grounds of conscience... Conscientious objection to the law is not a criminal act. These people are our people and we should take a principled stand, together.
Tony Benn
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Change from below, the formulation of demands from the populace to end unacceptable injustice, supported by direct action, has played a far larger part in shaping British democracy than most constitutional lawyers, political commentators, historians or statesmen have ever cared to admit. Direct action in a democratic society is fundamentally an educational exercise.
Tony Benn
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I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world, because if you have power you use it to meet the needs of you and your community.
Tony Benn
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[Men] who would rather go to jail than betray what they believe to be their duty to their fellow workers and the principles which they hold.
Tony Benn
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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.
Tony Benn
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A quotation is what a speaker wants to say—unlike a soundbite which is all that an interviewer allows you to say.
Tony Benn
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What we lack in Government is entrepreneurial ability.
Tony Benn
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This huge Commission building in Brussels, in the shape of a cross, is absolutely un-British. I felt as if I were going as a slave to Rome; the whole relationship was wrong. Here was I, an elected man who could be removed, doing a job, and here were these people with more power than I had and no accountability to anybody... My visit confirmed in a practical way all my suspicions that this would be the decapitation of British democracy without any countervailing advantage, and the British people, quite rightly, wouldn't accept it. There is no real benefit for Britain.
Tony Benn
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We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role.
Tony Benn
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No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this
Tony Benn
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If I rescued a child from drowning, the Press would no doubt headline the story 'Benn grabs child.'
Tony Benn
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For those without personal wealth or political authority a trade union card and a ballot paper are the only two routes to political power.
Tony Benn
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
Tony Benn
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Born:
April 3, 1925
Died:
March 14, 2014
(aged 88)
Bio:
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, known as Tony Benn, formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician on the left of the Labour Party.
Known for:
Letters To My Grandchildren (2009)
Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now (2004)
Arguments for Socialism (1979)
The Best of Benn (2014)
Free Radical: New Century Essays (2003)
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