Tony Benn Quotes

It's lovely to be old. I've got age, experience and zero personal ambition. No body could corrupt me by anything: possibly a job in the government, a peerage, a quango, I don't want any of it.

If ever I left the House of Commons it would be because I wanted to spend more time on politics.

I have had the advantage of a radical Christian upbringing

Democracy is not just voting every 5 years and watching 'Big Brother' in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say where we live and work

The exhaustion of old age is something people who are younger don't fully appreciate.

I really think in the Commonwealth of Europe you should have Russia. I listed a hundred countries that would be in it and it would then be a really European United Nations.

My alternative to American superpower is the UN and I might add when China becomes the worlds greatest superpower you will need it too.

Workers are not going to be fobbed off with a few shares...or by a carbon copy of the German system of co-determination.

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

Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.

Having served in eleven Parliaments, it would be difficult to describe this as a maiden speech. It would be like Elizabeth Taylor appearing at her next wedding in a white gown.

There is no connection between imperialism and democracy. I mean when we ran an Empire which we did when I was born, there was no democracy anywhere.

It is tempting to deny, but if you deny you confirm what you won't deny.

I'm a democrat - I don't support Bush, I don't support Blair, I don't support Bin Laden.

The one thing that unites Sunni, Shiites and Kurds is they want the Americans out.

The Internet is only the street corner meeting on a big scale

Undoubtedly the war with Iraq was a tragedy. I think it was also a crime.

Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.

Anyone from abroad will tell you that it is the class system that really lies at the root of our problems, economic and industrial. The House of Lords symbolises that.

America is now the dominant force and the only countervailing force is Europe.

In the end, the tragedy of Harold Wilson was that you couldn't believe a word he said

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.

It is obvious I shall have to abandon my hopes of getting the Queen's head off the stamps.

The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.

If you want your debt lifted you've got to sell your school and your hospitals.

The 1973 Labour Conference will have before it the most radical programme the Party has prepared since 1945.

There is good and bad in all of us and the Church uses the idea of original sin to control us by saying that, if we do not obey the bishops, we will rot in Hell.

Bush is actually encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons because the one thing I do know is if Iran did have nuclear weapons they wouldn't be threatening them.

An MP is the only job where you have 70,000 employers, and only one employee.

[I am against] the Treaty of Rome which entrenches laissez faire as its philosophy and chooses bureaucracy as its administrative method.

She believes in something. It is an old-fashioned idea

Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religious faiths

Food movement organic food stores supplies health food products and facilitate with instrumental support in organic agriculture.

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

I think to understand how the democratic process works is the most important thing, so people don't get frightened by it, and get put off, and give up.

In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once

When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.

I don't want to commit myself in advocating a definite republican constitution which will get bogged down with the question of who would elect the President and when.

I am a public library

The peace movement didn't stop the Iraq but I think that Blair would not be able to go along and support an Iranian war.

I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis of personal liberty.

It is wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his

If you're going to make sense of politics you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don't agree with.

Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation...

I think if you're going to be committed to doing anything, you really have to care about it, and I suppose that is a romantic idea.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.

An educated, healthy & confident nation is harder to govern

There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.