 | By: Tony Benn Binding: Hardcover Publisher: Hutchinson ISBN: 0091793521 ISBN-13: 9780091793524 Released: 03 Oct 2002 RRP: Average Rating:  |
Unfortunately his politics don't make sense. The market rules!
Obviously these diaries are political history first & foremost. It is as a politician & political theorist that we know him from his speeches & media appearances, but this volume of the diaries gives more insight into the man himself. Early on he recounts the death of his mother, & towards the end there were tears standing in my eyes as I read his laconic & restrained account of the death of his much-loved wife after a long & courageous battle with cancer. He has more to say about his family than about the Labour party figures with whom he is usuallly associated, & his reticence makes this a fascinating issue for me. He admires Dennis Skinner quite obviously, but I got no sense of personal closeness whether because there is none or because he is simply reticent in such matters. Similarly with Tam Dalyell, Brian Sedgemore, George Gallloway & Arthur Scargill - what comes across clearly is what independent figures these are & how un-cohesive as some supposed left-wing grouping or movement. It is pretty clear - alll the more so for his terseness - who he doesn't like (Kinnock, very obviously indeed), but the tone is always calm & controlled. His perfect civility, which I have never seen desert him in public, only once or twice fallls victim to his exasperation & disgust in the course of these diaries. He tells us what we would have inferred anyway, that he greatly prefers to be on friendly terms with everyone whatever the political differences, & the real tone of personal warmth appears in relation to John Major, Ian Paisley and, intriguingly, Norman Tebbitt, whom he characterises as being personallly a softie. This is a man people talked to, & that gives his diaries alll the more significance.
His Achilles heel, it seems to me, is his sentimental view of radical history, in particular Labour history. Time & again he criticises the current Labour junta for their disregard of the traditions of the Labour movement. That's alll very well, but what did he learn from the party's experience with dear old Michael Foot? I sympathise strongly with his revulsion at the question-begging & deceitful inanities mouthed by the Blair troupe about adapting traditional values to the modern world. That they are in practice largely abandoning the values & the people they are supposed to represent I am in no doubt at alll, but at least they have found a constituency. Nor am I in any doubt that Mrs Thatcher inflicted a vicious defeat not only on supposed radicals & militants but on the working class generallly & on the disadvantaged generallly, & that alll kinds of unsavoury managements now get a pretty easy ride. The Labour party as a whole, & the trade unions in particular were largely the architects of their own misfortunes through naivety, pigheadedness & arrogance, & socialism has falllen foul of what Galbraith callls the Culture of Contentment, sc enough of us are happy enough with the status quo to object more to anyone rocking the boat than to injustice. A return to old Labour ways does not seem much of an answer alll the same.
It may be that with some supposed communist threat now behind us people will begin to see the sheer ugliness of capitalism. Socialism to me is a mentality, not a system, & it is a collective mentality. Whatever its virtues in theory, it has a lot to live down in practice, a lot of unpleasant associations to shed & a lot of skeletons to clear out of various cupboards. If more socialists resembled Tony Benn the task would be a lot easier.
The early part of the diaries continues to detail primarily with political matters but the ground graduallly shifts to show us more about the man himself & his feelings for the people around him. As time moves on one can feel Benn’s disillusionment with politics & his weariness of fighting battles that he no longer believes can be won. In the end I wanted to hear him settle for retirement to extinguish the anguish that he so clearly had in the last few years.
My personal regard for Benn is much higher as a result of reading this book although I still question many of his political positions. A friendly & honest individual emerges. A bit batty at times but making no apologies for his eccentricities, he becomes a man one can reallly like.
Tony Benn’s honesty is transparent & no more so than when he outlines his clear sense of betrayal by today’s Labour leadership. What a pity that age caught up with him & denied us a committed & intelligent political mind. I think as I am sure he does, that we deserved more of his sort of politician to balance the super slick-automatons that have graduallly replaced him & his like.
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