Talk:Tony Benn

We have an interview with Tony Benn over on Wikinews. The transcript is currently a work-in-progress at wikinews:Wikinews:Story preparation/Interview with U.K. statesman Tony Benn/Raw transcript. The audio recording is over on Commons, click a few links and you'll find it. There are some great quotes - he clears up that Concorde wasn't his baby and his interest was in saving jobs. Also damns Tony Blair and praises Gordon Brown. The recording is about 35-40 minutes long and worth a listen - particularly if you enjoy his old-Etonian accent. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, Tony Benn was at Westminster not Eton but I understand what you mean! I was a supporter of his son Hilary in the recent Deputy Leadership, Hilary Benn being in the present Labour cabinet. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 23:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Tony Benn. --Antiquary 18:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.


 * All the emphasis on crime and drugs and pornography used to justify the supression of the Internet is really aimed at supressing knowledge of the radical political alternatives that are now available.


 * If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realization that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented.


 * The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.


 * I don't think people realise how the establishment became established. They simply stole land and property from the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since.

Five questions quote
This quote appears to be slightly incorrect and wrongly referenced. Should it be...

“The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful person--Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler--one can ask five questions: what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.”

Tony Benn Commons Hansard [16 Nov 1998: Column 685] Volume 319 Debate on: European Parliamentary Elections Bill, from 7.20 pm

Refugee quote
“The way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it."

Actually Neal Ascherson

"We should always watch how politicians treat refugees, Neal Ascherson once wrote, because that's how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it."Cancerward (talk) 02:33, 29 June 2018 (UTC)