Tony Benn quotes - page 2
![[The Labour Party]'s never been a socialist party, but it's always had socialists in it, just as there are some Christians in the Church, it's an exact parallel. (Tony Benn)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/15/tony-benn-church-parallel-478415.webp)
The key to any progress is to ask the question why? All the time. Why is that child poor? Why was there a war? Why was he killed? Why is he in power? And of course questions can get you into a lot of trouble, because society is trained by those who run it, to accept what goes on. Without questions we won't make any progress at all.
Tony Benn
It takes powers which are permanent-this is not a temporary provisions Bill-and cover all fuels. I welcome the Bill because it will enable a Labour Government to do all they want under Labour's programme for Britain...It will give us the power to control all the oil companies, all the multi-nationals, to fix their prices and their distribution systems; and under these powers every other fuel and its use, including the chemical industry, will be brought within the control of the Government of the day. This will include road transport and private transport.
Tony Benn
Well I came across Marx rather late in life actually, and when I read him, two things: first of all I realised that he'd come to the conclusion about capitalism which I'd come to much later, and I was a bit angry he'd thought of it first; and secondly, I see Marx who was an old Jew, as the last of the Old Testament Prophets, this old bearded man working in the British Library, studying capitalism, that's what 'Das Kapital' was about, it was an explanation of British capitalism. And I thought to myself, 'Well anyone could write a book like that, but what infuses, what comes out of his writing, is the passionate hostility to the injustice of capitalism. He was a Prophet, and so I put him in that category as an Old Testament Prophet.
Tony Benn
We have come to the end of a chapter in our industrial history. The industrial system to which the Tory Party adheres-at least officially and in its manifestos-has failed us. ... It is no use blaming working people or the unions if they have to work in ancient factories with obsolete equipment producing old-fashioned goods at unecomonic prices and earning low wages as well. Working people not only are not responsible for the weakness of British manufacturing industry. They have hitherto been denied the tools and tackle that they needed to put it right. ... We have got to make a fresh start now. We have got to get investment up, and to get it up as soon as we can. If the market economy cannot or will not give us that investment, we must do it direct.
Tony Benn
He has a deep contempt for Britain, the British people and parliamentary democracy. He is trying to climb back to power via the Treaty of Rome, and put Britain under government from Brussels for ever. In 1970 Mr Heath solemnly promised that he would not take Britain into the Common Market without the full-hearted consent of the British people. He broke his pledged word then, and he now says he will not accept a 'No' vote on Thursday. Heath promised more jobs and higher living standards inside the EEC. These promises were all broken, and he now tells us we are so poor we cannot come out; beggars can't be choosers. That is false, too. Heath's leadership has been a total disaster for the British people. The Tory Party threw him out.
Tony Benn
My Great-grandfather was a Congregational Minister and my Mother was a Bible scholar, and I was brought up on the Bible, that the story of the Bible was conflict between the kings who had power, and the prophets who preached righteousness. And I was taught to believe in the prophets, got me into a lot of trouble. And my Dad said to me when I was young, "Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone, Dare to have a purpose firm, Dare to let it (be) known."
Tony Benn
[The Conservatives' Industry Act contains] the most comprehensive armoury of government control that has ever been assembled for use over private industry, far exceeding all the powers thought necessary by the last Labour government...Heath has performed a very important historical role in preparing for the fundamental and irreversible transfer in the balance of power and wealth which has to take place...The whole nature of the mixed economy operating on market forces has been transformed by this quiet revolution in a way that is not yet fully appreciated.
Tony Benn
The Labour party believes in the traditional values of society-in the idea that we have responsibilities one to another and that we are not just greedy all the time, looking out only for ourselves. Without being personal, the philosophy that has been propagated over the past 10 years has been wicked and evil...to set man against man, woman against woman and country against country and to build on nationalism and racism...and all the damage that has been done by the Conservatives has been disgraceful...I have a measure called the Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill...It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities-the process has begun-but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection-a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome.
Tony Benn
The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful person-Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler-one can ask five questions: what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.
Tony Benn
In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once...The one constant element throughout this long history of policy has been the fact that these alternatives have been largely centrally decided and imposed and have been seen as problems of economics and management rather than as problems of politics and consent...Any constructive long-term industrial strategy must be developed by the longer, slower route of real consultation and power sharing, all done more openly. There is no alternative.
Tony Benn
The United States has enough military hardware and technology to... bully, bribe and blackmail people into going along with their wars is something you mustn't underestimate. ...The multinationals have no loyalty to the United States any more than they have any loyalty to Britain, but the way they express their interest is by buying both political parties in America and expecting a pay-off whichever one wins - and that is totally anti-democratic.
Tony Benn
The issues raised in the historic conflict between Charles I, resting his claim to govern Britain on the divine right of kings, and Parliament - representing, however imperfectly, a demand for the wider sharing of power - concerned the use and abuse of state power, the right of the governed to a say in their government, and the nature of political freedom. The Levellers grew out of this conflict. They represented the aspirations of working people who suffered under the persecution of kings, landowners and the priestly class, and they spoke for those who experienced the hardships of poverty and deprivation. They developed and campaigned, first with Cromwell and then against him, for a political and constitutional settlement of the civil war which would embody principles of political freedom, anticipating by a century and a half the ideas of the American and French revolutions.
Tony Benn
Establishment necessarily involves a subtle corruption of the spirit of the church because it is safely embedded in the wider establishment of society, which includes the privileged and the powerful. ... How can those Christians who see monetarism being so cruelly applied to the old, the sick, the homeless, women, the black community, and the young unemployed, lead a struggle against this injustice from within an established church subject to a Cabinet and a parliamentary majority composed of those very people who are responsible for implementing those very policies?
Tony Benn