Quote Originally Posted by Keyser Soze View Post
Tony Benn was a rare breed of politician. People can choose to agree or disagree with him, but when you read his books and hear his parliamentary speeches what you were dealing with was a Rolls Royce of a politician who could think things through with a piercing logic.

I think what made him fairly unique was the fact he could be accurate both in arguments and conclusions, without resorting to statistical grabbing. Nothing wrong with statistics but people grab them without context, or just use the wrong ones sometimes, or cannot understand how they can be manipualated.

He spoke with logic, experience, history and humanity. A rare, eloquent politician. A signpost as he would say.
Perhaps Sir Bier Turnaround should relect on Benns advise to Blairs move to the central right ground, for the desperate need for power.

From Guardian:

“We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.”


Blamed by many for contributing to Labour’s lack of electoral success during the 1980s, Tony Benn was a totem for those who rejected the shift to the right widely seen as necessary if the party was to regain power. This shift was eventually completed under Tony Blair, who pushed through the abandonment of clause IV and redefined Labour as a party comfortable with privatisation and free market economics. The quote above indicates why Benn resisted such a move