Tony Benn: the aristocrat who fought for workers 

@Sal Blasker are you saying the Tories have honor ? , if you are I am looking at you the same way I first saw Noel Edmonds in the 1970's and how I look at him now ...

Dennis skinner is in that bracket too

Him and the bloke over his right shoulder

And Jeremy Corbyn of course is a man of the same convictions. Oh how much of a better society we would have under Jeremy Corbyn.

Perhaps you've done your homework in these intervening years on just how awful a government minister he was, not least as Minister of Technology where he signed away so much of the North Sea gas & oil extraction & production rights to American oil companies on terms that were truly dreadful for the UK...The oil companies absolutely played him for the buffoon he was & they won & subsequently made HUGE profits at the UK's expense for many decades.

keneblana he was a Lord

@Classic Movies I will accept that the man was certainly noble, (strictly in the proletarian definition of the word of course!)

@Classic Movies he really did have the courage of his convictions, particularly as he denounced his aristocratic title.

@Classic Movies 1. he was an aristocrat for basically a couple months before he fought to get rid of the title. 2. it's misleading to call him an aristocrat, because he did not come from a long line of landed barons or anything like that, his grandfather was a tiler and his father was given a hereditary peerage near the end of his career

@@keneblana He was born with a noble title as far as I know, but he got rid of it so he could be elected into the Underhouse or something like that. There are some rules on that issue in the UK but not sure how they are.

John Mulligan I was thinking the same thing. He is the anarchists worst nightmare, socialism with lots of bureaucracy! But yet I do respect him, honourable and gracious, I would rather have him as an “enemy” than Putin, Xi, Trump etc..... With Benn, after a day of disagreement we could still have a beer, then turn away. With Putin and Xi, I wouldn’t even turn my back away....😂😅

Wow take care

Yep, he had respect. Unfortunately this wealthy man never experienced poverty!!

Dead right Nounismation, and a beautiful comment !!

Thank you for this comment, this man is my political Idol (and I don't like the idea of an idol)...that's how much he means to me. Now living in Bristol, it pleases me to sometimes walk past "Mr Benn House" in the Centre. Jesus; just imagine if he was our PM.... ;'(

You are so lucky you met such a great man.

Me too. My late socialist working class father who volunteered to fight fascism in 1939 admired him greatly

Never truer words said.

Never "grafted" a day In his life!! Devoid of any pragmatic or "common sense" values. A wealthy man who attempted to "grasp power" on rhetoric!!

@@ianmclean5812 Not everyone has to "graft" using ones brain and intellect to better things for the average punter, is a rather decent way to spend your life. He could have lived a very different life, but chose not too. What have you contributed to society bud.

Whatever people thought of the likes of Tony Benn, or Enoch Powell, they were honourable and principled politicians who commanded respect and refused to abandon their beliefs just to gain popularity.

I am left wing but I found during the EU referendum that I had more in common with the Right than the "New Left".

if they did they would get the right wing Tory press to blacked him and his caricature , you know they would , you couldn't have Tony Benn now he wouldn't be allowed , but thanks for your kind words , his Socialist views are what made him great , what he say's would see the people benefit greatly oh well.

@@lewisner in what way mate interesting as most remain supporters seem to be blaming Labour , they've got a f**king nerve the bastards , they started the whole thing , but yes what is your experience with the new left? and why do you think they are wrong?

Left and right divides us brothers and sisters, we all want equality for the workers regardless of colour or background, it’s top verses bottom not left vs right

@@TheWaveGoodbye-Music well put.

His politics are almost irrelevant when considering him compared to the current lot. He was sincere which would have him above just about everyone now

You're a good man, also.

When did Jeremy Corbyn die? They've animated him well the past few years, always knew he wasn't quite right though.

@@BillyGoatScruff1000 Will Jeremy didn't die , Tony did therefor unable to see what he is doing now as he is dead, I think it is called a mixed type conditional , in grammar , ok happy good carry on.

I know it. So do loads of people. He's an icon. He knew what needed to be done. We workers need to keep his message alive. Share it in groups you're in. It's easy. He encouraged us!

@@kerryfry1857 sadly most people don't want to know. Britain is finished. A mess on the right a mess on the left, in fact they are meeting up because they have gone so far out and the others just consume. Let's blame it on brexit or the French.Lol I left many years ago and miss Blighty everyday but where and how I live is for me tangible in work and nature. Living in Blighty now seems to me about hoping whoever in power will dish out aid. Lost the plot. Two words that might have stopped this ever happening JOHN SMITH

Why did you think war was a good idea?

Great idea, the MILLION DEAD Iraqis and the national debt thanks you for your violent imperialism

Aye most of them just stand there with a high vis, hard hat on posing with a shovel for the paper

Dennis Skinner worked in it.

It's a tragedy that this principled man was never Prime Minister.

Jeremy corbyn was also brilliant and George galloway etc but its scary now how awful so called democracy is in England ive seen it get so much like usa over last twenty yesrs I wish jeremy corbyn had won or been allowed ro be prime minister

And Julian assange wikileaks is one of few true journalists

He'd wonder where principles, honour and integrity went.

He'd wonder why the house of commons and its adjoining sewage facilities had swapped places.

It was worse then that..between post 1979 and 1981, the Tories were only ahead in two polls over that entire period and labour ahead in the rest..the SDP defection cracked the party apart..

The problem was that the party as a whole massively opposed the Falklands war, saying that the money would be better spent in the country to tackle poverty. They read the room wrong though, underestimating the patriotism and justice working class communities felt about a foreign country invading one of our sovereign lands.

Argentina actually won the Falklands War, and the UK lost it. It made a dictatorship collapse in Argentina, and ushered in an age of credit card debts and austerity for the world.

@@SRPC21 as an Indian I often wondered what made the working class Britons drool over a strip of land which never brought any wealth to their pockets but the capitalists. Was it a colonial hangover?

@@swagatochatterjee7104 As a Brit, I have no answer for you, other than Thatcher saw it as an opportunity to buy popularity. The newspapers in Britain relentlessly showered their readers with jingoistic nationalism and it spread like a fever. Years later, Thatcher was voted the most-hated woman in British history and most Brits saw the whole Falklands deal as a betrayal of our own forces and a ludicrous waste of their lives.

With no future!!

Exactly convenient how they fail to mention he would have voted and campaigned to leave had he still been alive in 2016.

It says "withdrawal from Europe" at 2:51.

He didn't renounce the money though, did he? Champagne Socialist!

What money are you talking about?

Oh dear read the article not the headline. This was legitimate tax planning.

@@MrSonicAdvance When was the last time anyone paid any attention to a beggar in the street

@@incredibleXMan So socialists support rich people avoiding paying tax now? Interesting.

Kind of but his grandfather was a baronet

Baji Scipio Dārayav Aurelius Julian Venizelos Nalwa He had a lordly title = aristocrat He gave it up so that he could serve in the House of Commons Geez.. the video even covers this

Nope. The economy died with this man. Britain can now longer sell anything, because Britain no longer makes anything!! An Isolated Island dominated by socialists who want to strike!!...GOODBYE BRITISH LEYLAND!!! LOL!!

It certainly is.

Brown covered up child abuse.

Google It!! LOL

Yes, he inherited the title from his father because his (Tony's) elder brother was killed in the Second World War. But Tony's father, a former Labour Government Minister, was MADE a Lord in 1940 after he'd retired from the Commons, and he agreed to become one simply to increase the number of Labour peers in the Lords. Nothing to do with the aristocracy at all

ysgol3 He was by blood, but he rejected it

Nestor and Carlos - His father and grandfather were MPs, his father, a former Labour cabinet minister was made a lord in the 1940s when his Commons career was over, simply to increase the number of Labour members of the House of Lords. In those days the only peerages were hereditary ones, and the family expected that Tony's elder brother, Michael, who intended to go into the church not politics, would inherit it from his father. However Michael was killed in the war, so when Tony's father died in 1960 Tony was, as he himself put it, 'saddled with' a title he didn't want ! Tony, an MP for Bristol, was then dismissed from the Commons ! Tony and his father had discussed what to do when this happened, and Tony fought a principled and heroic court campaign to get the right to 'renounce' his peerage, which he did when he won in court and so he returned to the Commons. Ironically, the next person to use this new right to renounce was Alec Douglas-Hume, who then became an MP so he could succeed Macmillan as Prime Minister in 1963. All this is just one of the reasons so called 'socialists' hated Tony - for example Healey, who was desperate for a peerage (which he of course got) and was furious that Tony Benn had simply binned his own in favour of democracy. Kinnock was the same, though two men of principle who refused peerages were Michael Foot and a much misunderstood, decent man, Ted Heath.

Thank you Carlos, my pleasure.

@@ysgol3 that still makes him an aristocrat if he is a peer. You seem to be confusing aristocrat for gentry. Gentry own land. The Duke of Buccluch is both gentry and aristocrat. Benn s father and son are aristocrats/peers. But a Laird who owns an estate is gentry

Poor you. I wish you better

and there in effect you have the answer to precisely why Socialism never will and never has worked