Product Description

"The Benn Diaries", embracing the years 1940-1990, are already established as a uniquely authoritative, fascinating and readable record of political life. The selected highlights that form this single volume edition include the most notable events, arguments and personal reflections throughout Benn's long and remarkable career. The narrative starts with Benn as a schoolboy and takes the reader through his youthful wartime experiences as a trainee pilot, his nervous excitement as a new MP during Atlee's premiership and the tribulations of Labour in the 1950's with the Conservatives in firm control. It ends with the Tories again in power, but on the eve of Margaret Thatcher's fall, while Tony Benn is on a mission to Baghdad before the impending Gulf War. Over a span of 50 years, the public and private turmoil in British and world politics is recorded as Benn himself moves from wartime service to become the baby of the House, Cabinet Minister and finally the Commons' most senior Labour Minister.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99055 in Books
• Published on: 1996
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 682 pages

Review
"* 'The Benn Diaries, intensely personal, candid and engaging as they are, rank as an important work of historiography.' - Alan Clark, Daily Telegraph * 'Quite apart from the brio of illuminating a life almost entirely free of boredom (another rarity), the collected Benn has some critical patches of postwar history recorded hot.' - Peter Hennessy, The Times * 'Immensely readable and revealing' - Ben Pimlott, Sunday Times 'An archive of incalculable value' Ruth Dudley Edwards, Independent' An archive of incalculable value' - Ruth Dudley Edwards, Independent"

About the Author
Tony Benn entered the Commons in 1950 and with Ted Heath held the record post-war timespan as an MP. He has held four cabinet posts and has twice contended the leadership of the Labour Party, of which he has also been chairman. He has written over 15 books. Ruth Winstone has edited all volumes of Tony Benn's Diaries and several biographies of political figures. She is associate editor of the Times Guide to the House of Commons; and currently works as a Library Clerk in the Commons.

Customer Reviews

factual reportage pleasantly written.
This book will provide the reader with an insight into the minutae of how the Labour Party was run over the last 50 years, but from an interesting viewpoint. You see although the party was ostensibly socialist, for Benn and his fellow travellers, it was not quite socialist enough. To be truly socialist, the Labour Party was to transform British life to make it indistinguishable from, say, East Germany or Roumania. By this I do not mean that it had to be dominated by the Soviet Union or have a repressive state security apparatus (although those seem to be have been a prerequisite for being a socialist country in Europe in the period in question), but the way the country conducted itself in social, economic and political affairs, with committees and voting on everything, however trivial and every aspect of life requiring accountability or politicisation.

This diary documents Benn's move leftwards over the years, including his discovery that in his opinion Marx was correct, though being a Marxist did not seem to disqualify one from being in the Labour party.

It is a quite dry read. Benn is a pleasant enough person, it's just that his dream of a Socialist Britain is unpalatable. He achieved his aim of making the party truly socialist by the time of the 1983 election, which resulted in it being absolutely trounced by Margaret Thatcher at a time when inflation was high, as was unemployment and there had been serious rioting as well as resurgence in the anti-nuclear movement. The scale of the defeat was so huge that Labour did not get back in office for another 14 years and only after it had turned itself into a 'Conservative-lite' party with only a pink tinge of the full socialist beast it had been in the 1980s.

Benn is an obsessive diarist (presumably to ensure that he is never misquoted) and we see Political life on the left in great detail. He is also discreet. For all his iconoclastic zeal he does not take the opportunity to 'do a Samson' and reveal any state, political or personal secrets. So this is a sanitised behind the scenes look.

Having read this and also Alan Clarke's diaries I do prefer the latter. Clarke provides us with so much inner personal detail which is lacking here. For some reason the flesh and blood person is missing in this work. Benn does not have anxieties and worries on the same level as Clarke, who even provides us with insights into his bodily movements. But then no two people are the same. Benn lives eats and breathes politics. Clarke has additional interests.

The diary has been dictated on tape and transcribed so it's an easy flowing read. But it's not unputdownable so only three stars.