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Tony Benn died this morning..a very decent and kind man personally, unlike many of those singing his praises now that he’s safe and dead.
A good man of strong socialist and anti-imperialist principles, he was a dominant figure in British politics for decades.
RIP
Agreed.
A sad loss.
I remember when newspaper reporters phoned Benn to tell him his son had been badly mangled in a car crash. Untrue, of course, but an excellent photo shoot as Mad Benn came running out of his house, his eyes wide and mouth open, almost screaming. Nice people those reporters
They’ve done worse – think Milly Dowler’s mobile phone hacking
A few things spring to mind in remembrance. He stated that he gave up being an MP to concentrate on politics, which seemed a very pithy thing to say – and apt considering how media focused and soundbite trained many of our elected representatives are.
And there was the occasion on the half-baked 11 o’clock show where he was interviewed with Ali G in a spoof interview (as was the style back in the 90s) purporting to be about engaging the young in politics and he was asked a series of very silly questions about street slang and the Ali G feigned racist and sexist veiwpoints. Benn handled it with such aplomb, readily attacking stupid comments and calling Ali G and idiot with the self-assured confidence of someone who wasn’t too fussed about how he looked on camera. I seem to remember a round of applause from the studio audience after the video rolled, too.
Other politicians looked like idiots as they tried to be ‘down with the kids’ and attempted to be cool. The young disenchanted and disenfranchised responded to him because he was far from patronizing – a rare skill in politricks
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