Product Description

'Easily the best of the year's diaries... It proves to be an astonishingly moving and human document' Anthony Howard, Sunday Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131036 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Anthony Howard, Sunday Times
Easily the best of the year's diaries - It proves to be an astonishingly moving and human document

Synopsis
Tony Benn is the longest serving MP in the history of the Labour Party. He left Parliament in 2001, after more than half a century in the House of Commons, to devote more time to politics. This volume of his Diaries describes and comments, in a refreshing and honest way, upon the events of a momentous decade including two wars, a change of government in Britain and the emergence of New Labour, of which he makes clear he is not a member. Tony Benn's account is a well documented, formidable and principled critique of the New Labour Project, full of drama, opinion, humour, anecdotes and sparkling pen-portraits of politicians on both sides of the political divide. But his narrative is also broader and more revealing about day-to-day political life, covering many aspects normally disregarded by historians and lobby correspondents, relating to his work in the constituency, including his advice surgeries. This volume also offers far more of an insight into Tony Benn's personal life, his thoughts about the future and his relationship with his family, especially his remarkable wife Caroline, whose illness and death overshadow these years.

Tony Benn is a unique figure on the British political landscape: a true democrat, a passionate socialist and diarist without equal. With this volume, his published Diaries cover British politics for over sixty years. It is edited, as are all others, by Ruth Winstone.

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.

Customer Reviews

Inconsistent, but ultimately fascinating history of the man and his politics.
A rather long, and a little self-indulgent, history of a long career in politics. Tony is a passionate historian as well as politician and it is easy to see that he is trying to help future historians by giving the meat on the bones of some of the events of the twentieth century. It was surprising to discover the reasons for some decisions and actions NOT being taken as opposed to the edited stories that get reported in the general media. My respect for the author has grown.

A good read for the bedside table - easy to flick through to find interesting entries if the going gets a little stodgy.

The Benn Diary
I write this review from the standpoint as a true blue Tory!! Notwithstanding that admission and if anyone is still reading after it, i advise anyone who is at all interested in politics to read this. It gives a fascinating insight int politcs, political relationships and what actually goes on in Westminster and political parties. It is also funny and thought provoking and moving. In short it is brilliant. If you read the Clark diaries and were put off by political self obsession then read this, it may even restore your faith in politicians!!

Swan song of a great conviction politician
In these days of Politics lite, when all debate and political ideas are being reduced to third way mush, here is a voice to heed.

Starting with John Major's last election victory and the death throes of Kinnock's leadership, Tony Benn begins to feel deep disillusionment on how the role of Parliament and political life are developing. But worse is to come. John Smith's brief leadership gives way to the nascent Blair leadership, and the beginning of the end of conviction politics....

There's a cast of thousands here, and the detail and bustle of daily political life protrayed is one of the joys of the book. From the local world of Benn's Chesterfield constituency to the machinations of the National Executive and the drama of the House, it's all here.
Tony Benn may not be as fully engaged in events as he may once have been, as he is increasingly sidelined by his own party, and his own inclinations and personal life draw him further away, and the diaries may not therefore be as politically satisfying as previously volumes.
But the human drama of the account of the illness and death of his beloved wife Caroline is profoundly moving. The dignity of his writing, the avoidance of mawkishness, the raw emotion behind the restraint of language are tremendously powerful.
He is full of love and admiration for his family and friends too, which help to carry him through the depression of the end of his parliamentary career and his bereavement. But there's another consolation. As he is repeats in these pages, he's "leaving parliament to concentrate on politics......"

The mendaciousness of the New Labour Machine is here well brought home, with it's cult of the personality of the leader, and it's threats and abuse to MP's who do not show themselves as suitably careerist in their actions.
Benn is stunned as he sees the machinery of the Party he's given his life to impatiently dismantled by the grinning Blair and his 'New' party.

An amazing, enriching read. 'Marvellous,' as Tony Benn would say