Tony Benn is dead

[David Johnson]

"It's not very hard to be an MP for 50 years if the party want you to be. "

Are you speaking from personal experience, Max? Any idea how many people are MPs for 50 years? On top of the 50 years he also got involved very actively in various campaigns e.g. against the war in Iraq.

""in power for decades"

Over 10 years in a variety of roles.

"Doesn't make him a political big-hitter does it? "

It is the totality of the experience - brilliant speaker, diarist, 50years an MP, over 10 years in government etc etc. that made him a big hitter.

"Erm, Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Max, has it ever crossed your mind that the above list DO/DID NOT WANT TO TURN UP AND BE INTERVIEWED? Benn continued being active in politics and campaigning until the end of his life. That can't be said about Wilson, Heath, Callaghan or Thatcher, can it?

"I must say David your post was not one of your best!"

I must say Max your post was up to your usual drivel !wink!

I will leave you to your obsession about what people do to get publicity. You will be arguing next that Tony Benn would have cut his breasts off for publicity if he had been a woman.

[Sam Slater]

Trolling again, Arg.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]I've wondered for many years why he was so famous.[/quote]

Stop winding me up, Max.

[David Johnson]

Max and Argie trolling? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you

I'm going to have to have drink to settle me nerves at this staggering bit of news.

Mind as trolls go they could be a tad more entertaining don't you think?

[Arginald Valleywater]

When someone was a sympathiser of Mr Brezhnev's regieme and was close friends with the traitor Bruce "I'll take your money Mr KGB" Kent then it is not trolling. I hope MI5 kept a close watch on the odious twat.

[number 6]

RIP Tony,one of the greats of the left.

[randyandy]

Man who loved free speech that shut down pirate radio.....

[Snowy]

Arginald: Do everyone with a decent view of humanity and all that is good and just in this world and fuck off. Cheers.

[Essex Lad]

David Johnson wrote:


>
> ""in power for decades"
>
> Over 10 years in a variety of roles.

That's still not decades. In any case a decade is strictly speaking the 60s or 70s etc, 55-65 is ten years not a decade.
>
From the Diaries:
Monday, April 7, 2003: The Tory candidate for Eastleigh at the last election came up to me tonight.

He said he?d been to a party, last November I think, at which Lady Thatcher was present with Norman Tebbit, and he?d gone up to her and asked her what she regarded as her greatest achievement, and she replied: ?New Labour.?
That says it all really.

[Essex Lad]

David Johnson wrote:

> A very sad loss to left wing politics.

And as the Daily Mail says quite a loss to Right-wing politics as well!

Mr Benn?s most significant legacy as the one he least intended. For it was in large measure through him that voters? eyes were opened to the full, horrifying impact of Socialism and trade union bullying.

Without him, Margaret Thatcher might never have come to power with a mandate for the radical reforms that alone could make Britain fit for the 21st century.

For that ? and that almost alone ? the nation has cause to be grateful to this extremely gifted, highly principled and irredeemably wrong-headed man.