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Quote by Tony Benn

“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.”

Quote by Tony Benn

Author

Tony Benn was a prominent British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament for over 50 years. He was a key figure in the Labour Party and held various ministerial positions in the government. Benn was known for his radical left-wing views and his commitment to social justice and equality. more

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“I met somebody once who said, "I'm a lapsed-atheist" by what he meant was, "I don't believe in God but the older I get the more I realise there is a spirituality in everybody that has to be cherished and nourished." That made a lot of sense to me.”

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“Remember, imperialism is always presented as humanitarian: the white man's burden, the cross going round the world, the poor benighted natives, the sun never sets. . . So you have to be very careful about humanitarianism.”

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“I'm interested in language. We used to call it the War Office. Then it became the Ministry of Defence. We used to talk about the hydrogen bomb, now we talk about a deterrent. And the language is very cleverly constructed to give the impression that it's not what it is.”

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“I was radicalised by being a minister. That's when I saw how the system really worked. And that is not a very usual process, but it certainly happened to me: it gave me a lot more experience, it helped me to understand where power really lay, develop strategies for undermining or changing it, and so on. But that isn't the norm. Mr Gladstone moved to the left as he got older, and one or two other people have, but normally you swing the other way.”

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“The quickest way to get to the top in society probably is to be a Blair Babe now. And then all of a sudden you find you're invited to parties. I don't want to be cynical, because I'm not. But I've seen it happen to so many people who move from the left to the right so damn quickly.”

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“My mother kept the house clean and we ate good. I didn't know we were poor until I started giving interviews.”

Knows Giving Mother House Poor Clean Interviews

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“The police are controlled by the whites, the media are controlled by the whites, the army's controlled by the whites, what hope is there for change? Administration changes from underneath.”

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“When somebody comes up with a progressive idea, to begin with, you're mad, bonkers. Then if you go on, you're dangerous. Then there's a pause. Then you can't find anyone who can say they thought of it in the first place. That's how progress is made. This is why I do believe in the vote. In the end, all these people who've been tempted to the right realise the warning lights in their constituency are brighter than the bright lights from No. 10 offering them things.”

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“Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. And then he wins the world peace prize and becomes president of South Africa. That's how change happens. It's very important not to differentiate protest from the democratic process.”

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“There's people on the left who say, the ballot box is a waste of time. Forget them. When Mandela voted for the first time at the age of 76 there was a lot of grown men, including me, wept buckets. That was what it was about. It doesn't solve things, but it gives you the mechanism to hold to account the people with power.”

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