Information AboutTony Benn |
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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 . He was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963 . FAMILY BACKGROUND His paternal grandfather was Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet and his father was the 1st Viscount Stansgate. But in adult life he has always emphasised that his family were not idle aristocrats but part of a strong, radical dissenting tradition in which enterprise and public (mainly political) service were combined. In order to distance himself from his class origins, in adult life he shortened his name from Anthony Wedgwood Benn to Tony Benn. 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 (for St. George's, Tower Hamlets and Devonport and Govan , respectively). His mother Margaret (née Eadie) (1897-1991), was a dedicated Theologian , founder President of the Congregational Federation and Feminist . She was member of the ''League of the Church Militant'' which was the predecessor of the ''Movement for the Ordination of Women''. In 1925 she was rebuked by Randall Thomas Davidson , the then Archbishop Of Canterbury , for advocating the Ordination Of Women . His mother's theology had a profound influence on Tony, as she taught him to support the prophets and not the Kings, as the prophets taught righteousness. 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 . Benn met US-born educationalist Caroline Middleton DeCamp (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. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their house in Holland Park . Tony and Caroline had four children - Stephen, Hilary (who is a Labour MP and cabinet minister), Melissa and Joshua, and ten grandchildren. Caroline died in 2000 aged 74. His children have also been active in politics and his son Hilary Benn is the Secretary of State for International Development. This makes him the third generation of his family to have sat in the Cabinet of the Government of the United Kingdom, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. 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. He was unexpectedly selected to follow Stafford Cripps as Labour candidate for Bristol South East in 1950 , and won the seat in a byelection that November after Cripps stood down for ill health. In 1951 he became " Baby Of The House ". 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. He made several attempts to remove himself from the line of succession but they were all unsuccessful. 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. Despite being disqualified from taking his seat, the people of Bristol South-East re-elected him. 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 . Outside Parliament Benn continued his campaign, and eventually the Conservative government accepted the need for a change in the law. The Peerage Act 1963 , allowing renunciation of peerages, was given the Royal Assent and became law shortly after 6 pm on July 31 , 1963 , and Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, at 6.22 pm 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, and Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on August 20 . In Government 's Panorama programme to discuss membership of the EEC, 1975]] In the 1960s government of Harold Wilson he became Postmaster General ; during his time in that position he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower , the creation of the Postal Bus Service and the introduction of the UK's first commemorative postage stamps to be designed by David Gentleman . He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this was vetoed by the Queen . He later became Minister of Technology, a post which allowed his enthusiasm for gadgets to shine through, including responsibility for overseeing the development of Concorde . 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 (then) European Economic Community . By the end of the 1970s he had become firmly identified with the left-wing of the Labour Party. 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. Sinn Féin argue that to do so would recognize Britain's claim over Northern Ireland and the Sinn Féin constitution prevents its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. In Opposition 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 contest was closely fought and Healey emerged victorious by a margin of barely 1%. 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 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. He stood for election as Party Leader in 1988 and was defeated again. In the first Gulf War he was active in the anti-war movement and visited Baghdad (after Edward Heath ) to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured. In 1991 , he proposed the Commonwealth Of Britain Bill . It proposed abolishing the British Monarchy , with the United Kingdom becoming a " Democratic , Federal and Secular Commonwealth ", in effect, a Republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement in 2001, but never achieved a Second Reading . RETIREMENT In 2001 he retired from Parliament "to devote more time to politics". He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War On Iraq , and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to again meet (and interview) Saddam Hussein . The interview was shown on British television. He also spoke out against the Iraq war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop The War Coalition , attended by over 1 million people. In February 2004 he was elected the first President of the Stop The War Coalition . He has toured with a one-man stage show, and also appears regularly in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey . In 2003 his show with Bailey was voted ''Best Live Act'' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards . In 2002 he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival . 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 ). The special edition was edited entirely by a school age film crew selected by a BBC competition. The decision by that non-professional crew to include Benn on the panel illustrates his relative popularity (compared to politicians in general) and reputation as a politician who speaks his mind. 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'. He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the IMF , the World Bank and the European Commission remain unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily. 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. He was to be kept in hospital for observation but was described as being in 'comfortable condition'. He was subsequently fitted with an Artificial Pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat. DIARIES AND OTHER WORKS Tony Benn is a prolific , London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches (ISBN 1904734030) set to Ambient Groove . A 'semi-authorised' biography, with a foreword by Benn, was published in 2001: David Powell, ''Tony Benn: A Political Life'', Continuum Books. {Link without Title} An autobiography, ''Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now'' (Hutchinson), was published in 2004. EXTERNAL LINKS
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