Socialist turd Tony Benn dead at 88

[link to www.standard.co.uk]



One of Tony Benn’s earliest political memories was of the 1929 general election, when his Cabinet minister father was summoned to kiss the King’s hand.

“I thought, ‘what a ridiculous thing to do!’” recalled the grand old man of British socialism in one of his final interviews, revealing that even as a child he was a stern critic of the establishment. Benn was perhaps the Labour Party’s most controversial figure of the post-war era.

Critics would say he helped to keep the party out of power during the era of Margaret Thatcher.

Yet despite his uncompromising reputation, the man himself disarmed those who met him with his charm, courteous manners and sincere passion for politics.

He was one of the few politicians to emerge largely unscathed when duped into an Ali G interview, patiently and sincerely challenging the comedian’s outrageous questions.

Anthony Wedgwood Benn — he chose to shorten his name — was born on April 3, 1925, into a political family, son of future Viscount Stansgate and grandson of John Williams Benn, a publisher and London County Council leader.

He attended Westminster School and was president of the Union at Oxford, though he always insisted his real education was at the “university of life”.

During the Second World War, he served in the RAF. He joined the Labour Party in 1943 and after the war started at the BBC World Service as a producer.

In Oxford in 1949 he met the love of his life, Caroline de Camp, an Ohio lawyer’s daughter.

Within nine days he proposed to her on a park bench, which he later bought and installed in the garden of their home in Holland Park, where it stayed for decades.

A year later he was elected in the Bristol South East by-election, becoming the youngest MP in the Commons.