Tony Benn- a socialist warrior
Tony Benn one of the great UK politicians from the left died yesterday and UK politics will be the weaker for it. Both his grandfathers, John Benn (who founded a publishing company) and Daniel Holmes , were also Liberal MPs (respectively, for Tower Hamlets , Devonport and Glasgow Govan ). As someone who grew up in the 1970s with Labour in power and Tony a Minister he was a constant backdrop to my youth. I was inspired at the time by the Liberal Party not Labour who had failed to implement left of center policies – it was the Liberals who had taken much of the space on the left that interested me hence joining the Young Liberals. Tony saw similar problems but his answers were very much more about extending the power of the state over big parts of industry and people’s lives. I saw government as the big enabler the extension of peoples control over the decisions that impact on their lives but there were many times I agreed with Tony. T...