Tony Benn Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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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 -
“If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”
-- Tony Benn -
“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 -
“Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.”
-- Tony Benn -
“If one meets a powerful person - Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates - ask them five questions: 'What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?' If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.”
-- Tony Benn -
“The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England.”
-- Tony Benn -
“A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for; there is all the difference in the world”
-- Tony Benn -
“Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.”
-- Tony Benn -
“After the war people said, 'If you can plan for war, why can't you plan for peace?' When I was 17, I had a letter from the government saying, 'Dear Mr. Benn, will you turn up when you're 17 1/2? We'll give you free food, free clothes, free training, free accommodation, and two shillings, ten pence a day to just kill Germans.' People said, well, if you can have full employment to kill people, why in God's name couldn't you have full employment and good schools, good hospitals, good houses?”
-- Tony Benn -
“An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.”
-- Tony Benn -
“It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.”
-- Tony Benn -
“The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.”
-- Tony Benn -
“I think very often the boat-rockers turn out to be the people who are building the craft”
-- Tony Benn -
“Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent demands of running their departments. On the whole, a period in high office consumers intellectual capital; it does not create it....The less ministers know at the outset, the more dependent they are on the only sources of available knowledge; the permanent officials.”
-- Tony Benn -
“It is tempting to deny, but if you deny you confirm what you won't deny.”
-- Tony Benn -
“The Civil Service is a bit like a rusty weathercock. It moves with opinion then it stays where it is until another wind moves it in a different direction”
-- Tony Benn -
“When you get to No 10, you've climbed there on a little ladder called 'the status quo'. And when you are there, the status quo looks very good”
-- Tony Benn -
“I have had the advantage of a radical Christian upbringing”
-- Tony Benn -
“In the end, the tragedy of Harold Wilson was that you couldn't believe a word he said”
-- Tony Benn -
“I've been a member of the Labour Party sixty five years, and I remain in it, but I think it's all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.”
-- Tony Benn -
“There is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle. To be fought, over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.”
-- Tony Benn -
“Workers are not going to be fobbed off with a few shares...or by a carbon copy of the German system of co-determination.”
-- Tony Benn -
“Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.”
-- Tony Benn -
“People would do well to ask themselves how many of their ambitions and aspirations derive from the type of economic system they inhabit and the insecurity and exhaustion it creates, and question the sense and purpose of a society where control of a large portion of life is abdicated under contract in the labour market, and where immense creativity and potential is stifled by the need to do difficult and repetitive tasks in order to earn a wage.”
-- Tony Benn -
“The 1973 Labour Conference will have before it the most radical programme the Party has prepared since 1945.”
-- Tony Benn -
“I sometimes wish the trade unionists who work in the mass media, those who are writers and broadcasters and secretaries and printers and lift operators of Thomson House would remember that they too are members of our working class movement and have a responsibility to see that what is said about us is true.”
-- Tony Benn -
“Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.”
-- Tony Benn -
“I think the truth is that the Labour Party isn't believed any more because people suspect it will say anything to get votes. The rebuilding of some radical alternatives to Thatcherism - and by that I mean all-party Thatcherism - will require us to do some very difficult things”
-- Tony Benn -
“I opposed the Suez war, I opposed the Falklands war. I opposed the Libyan bombing and I opposed the Gulf war and I never believed that any of those principled arguments lost a single vote - indeed, I think they gained support though that was not why you did it. What has been lacking in Labour politics over a long period is a principled stand”
-- Tony Benn
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