I’m part of the political generation that arrived on the scene under the brand name ‘Bennite’; the designation denotes a follower of the man who once pushed the Labour Party as far to the left as it was ever to go.
During his campaign for the deputy leadership in 1982, Tony Benn – pictured - regularly attracted larger audiences to public meetings than any politician would be capable of today, promoting a platform that combined nationalisation and planning with workers’ control and the extension of democracy.
These were – to a young man radicalised by the experience of long-term unemployment in the early Thatcher period and becoming involved politics for the first time – exciting ideas.
A quarter of a century later, my thinking has evolved in a direction both more Marxist and more libertarian, but I still consider Tony Benn something of an inspiration. So I was rather disappointed to read this in the Independent:
Mr Davis won the support today of veteran Labour left-winger Tony Benn.
Mr Benn said he was "totally opposed" to the anti-terror measure and urged Gordon Brown to ditch it if Mr Davis was re-elected in Haltemprice and Howden.
Mr Benn, father of Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, wrote to Labour chairman Harriet Harman saying he felt free to offer his backing to the Tory former shadow home secretary since Labour was refusing to enter a candidate in the contest.
OK, I can see where Benn is coming from on this one. The introduction of what amounts to internment without trial has even had me reconsidering my 2006 decision to rejoin the Labour Party.
In so far as what Davis is doing serves to keep the issue in the headlines and thus maintain pressure on the government, his gesture might even be a good thing.
But opposition to 42-day detention is not best advanced by backing a crude PR stunt from a pro-death penalty SAS hobbyist Tory, running for re-election in a safe Tory seat he is hardly unlikely to lose, partly at least in order to bolster the factional position of the Tory hard right.
Davis’s game is designed to fit in with the narrative that the Conservatives have somehow transmogrified into ‘progressives’. For Britain’s best-known socialist to back his candidacy can only lend credibility to this patent charade. Sorry, Tony, you’ve got this one badly wrong; please think again.
Meanwhile, this whole issue has completely exposed the inadequacy of the far left, despite the bluster from SWP/Left List and Respect Renewal to the effect that they are serious electoral players.
Literature produced by both these organisations regularly stress their commitment to defending the Muslim community. Well, if 42-day detention – a measure that will in practice be aimed almost exclusively against Muslims – doesn’t constitute clear-cut Islamophobia, what does?
If either of these groupings – or any other section of the left, for that matter – had even minimal tactical savvy, they would be drawing up plans to stand a candidate on a consistent civil libertarian platform. Not to do so is an admission of irrelevance.
That only a miniscule vote could be expected is beside the point; it is imperative to highlight Davis’s hypocrisy. But no, the central committee and national council prefer to leave the electoral field to politicians of higher calibre, such as declared or potential runners Mad Cow-Girl, Miss Great Britain, a pub landlord from Blackpool and a two-time Eurovision song contest loser. Says it all, really.
Posted at 13:16, 20 June 2008
Comments (54)
Agree, the left should have got its act together and put up one united candidate to put forward the civil liberties argument and push it further than Davies .
Davis is not some hero of civil liberties and is pretty reactionary. He is , I believe, in favour of 28 days ? He voted to restrict women's rights to abortion, lesbian/single womens access to fertility treatment and supported Section 28 as well as of course being a hang em and flog em SAS er.
The by election will benefit no one but Davis and the Tories.
The left is letting him set the agenda and getting focused on whether to support him.
Like you Dave I became involved in left politics through living under Thatcher and the Benn camapign and could never support or vote for a Tory.Its possible to support the ant 42 days campaign without doing so.
We need a left united candidate (ok, see the flying pigs !) and to focus on pressurising the labour MPs that could be swayed .
It seems a bit rich *not* to back Davis's campaign (assuming it sticks to the subject of 42-days) when one supports what he's saying, and when one is glad for the opportunity the by-election provides to try to make the anti-42 case to the wider electorate. Sure, he's a Tory, probably a hypocrite, and he patently has some unsavoury views on many other topics, but given that he's now 100% sure to be re-elected, there's nothing anyone can do about all that stuff.
While he happens to be campaigning on a topic liberals and socialists ought to be supporting, the task should be clear.
“It’s time for brown people to switch to Tory”
-Sunny Hundal, 16 June 2008
tinfoil hattery
More important who the hell cares.
For once, I agree with B4L. Outflanking Davis on the Left would only damage his campaign and cut into his vote - and that would only benefit the government. Even if he were the leader of the Baby-Eating Satanist faction of the Tory Party, he'd still be to the Left of the government on this issue - which means he deserves the support of the Left at this election.
Benn (pbuh) was interviewed on Radio Five Live shortly after DD announced his tomfoolery and Tb insisted that such a by-election would be a valid referendum on the issue - even though Tories and Lib Dems have 85% to our 12%.
If it was going to go against his POV because of different local dynamics he would obviously dismiss it out of hand as a stunt.
If Bob Marshall Andrews gave up his seat for DD to run against let's say Tony Blair it might be a fair test of the public view.
As it is DD is a loon. Should be ignored.
Meanwhile Alan Duncan's Vitol are not the ones producing Gentleman's Genital Snake Oil.
Unless the Tories embrace Davis's campaign more, it might not help them as much as we think. It exposes Cameron as a leader who wants to take public opinion as it is, rather than moving public opinion his way. I'm a bit perplexed by the Lib Dem response, as H&H was among their top 10 targets in 2005 ... but Clegg stood aside immediately.
People, I can't believe what I am reading. Unbelievable that anyone should ever contemplate voting for a TORY under any circumstances whatsoever. During the Second World War the Labour Party had an agreement with the Tory Party not to contest any seats that became vacant, the British Trotskyists of teh day criticised this as a betrayal. Class politics should always be put forward. Tony Benn is so wrong on this. i can't believe that he could advocate anyone voting for Davies, no matter how right he may think he is on this one particular issue.
of course there is no hypocrisy involved in followers of Lenin and Trotsky lecturing us about human rights, civil liberties and habeas corpus, is there?
Much as he frequently irritates me, I think Peter Tatchell would be an ideal candidate for the left in this instance.
reading derek wall's blog, it seems that the Greens will stand against Davis
But no, the central committee and national council prefer to leave the electoral field to politicians of higher calibre, such as declared or potential runners Mad Cow-Girl, Miss Great Britain, a pub landlord from Blackpool and a two-time Eurovision song contest loser.
Vaguely observing this hypocritical farce from a distance, the idea that the "Left List" *wouldn't* be standing a candidate, particuarly in the absence of an official Labour Party one, amazes me. I'd assumed, obviously wrongly, that would be a no-brainer. Oh, no, leave it to the Greens, comrades.
"For once, I agree with B4L. Outflanking Davis on the Left would only damage his campaign and cut into his vote - and that would only benefit the government. Even if he were the leader of the Baby-Eating Satanist faction of the Tory Party, he'd still be to the Left of the government on this issue - which means he deserves the support of the Left at this election."
and what if the Left runs against him and (as is likely) comes a very distant second. it does nothing whatsoever to "outflank" him, rather it sets up a right-wing Tory as a champion of civil liberties whilst making the Left look utterly irrelevant.
what about DD's voting on abortion, gay rights, 28 days, views on the death penalty etc? why does his view on 42 days trump all these and make him worthy of support? why must we overlook the very long list of issues on which his views are absolutely terrible? what if Bob Spink pulled the same stunt? presumably we should be telling peopl to vote UKIP because ON THIS ISSUE he would attacking the govt from the Left.
why anyone on the Left thinks it is a Good Thing to help DD jockey for position against Cameron is beyond me.
Benn has always been an utter fool, Dave. It was the influence of the wonderful and charming Caroline that kept him under some kind of control. Though not thanks not some of his advisers during the Bennite period, who included, step foward, John Palmer and Hilary Wainwright, who fed him with the self-congratulary gobshite that ruined the left.
Since you are joint Swiss-English could you not smell his complete 'Englishness'? It stank in my nostrils. And I have met him.
Hardly suprising that in his dotage he reverts to type.
I agree with DZ.
There certainly should be a Left List candidate (but is to confirmed there won't be?)
I also happen to also despise (but doubtless for different reasons to the above) that sanctimonious, pompous Christian socialist Tony Benn - supporting a Tory is one of his many crimes. First up against the wall.
"First up against the wall"
Yes, more evidence, if it was needed, of the Leninist left's devotion to civil and political liberties.
Difficult one, I agree. First, don't mean to be pedantic but Benn's Deputy Leadership campaign was in 1981. I was there at the Grand in Brighton when he lost - grown men crying and fights with Stan Orme MP for Salford etc.
I'm sad to note the bile directed towards TB. He is very far from being in his dotage.
The fault here is with the PLP for lining up like sheep and Gordon brown for doing his uusal bottling out act and not having the courage to field a candidate. Had Labour done so, neither Benn nor Marshall-Andrews could have campaigned for Davis. So why didn't they???
If a Left List or RESPECT candidate stood, they would get a risible vote. Tactically, how would that help? Given the current weakness of the Left I think we have to fight one issue at a time and on this one - Davis is right. Politics, as they say, sometimes makes for strabge bedfellows. I agree this is a bizarre one. But I still think Benn is right.
In 1975, Labour, including Benn, shared platforms with Tories as part of the "No" campaign against Europe.
Susan, with your reference to the 'No' campaign, I think you have proved my point about Benn being an utter cretin. He is, and always has been an utter cretin. A nice cretin, with some fine sounding lines about socialism. Not the kind of Uppas tree that normally flourishes on the left, but a kind of holy fool. Denis Healy, who is sharp, described him as such, in so many words.
Follow him into oblivion.
When he dies I shall be unhappy, since in most respects he is decent old buffer (though as John Wayne said, never trust a man you can't drink with). But he has the political judgement of a fruit fly.
Now if you want a left labour type I really admired from that epoch, take Eric Heffer. A real European lefty with deep socialist culture. I treasure the letter he sent me from his death-bed in reply to my own, sending him love and concern. That was really somebody.
Eh? Heffer participated in the No campaign alongside Tories every bit as vigorously as Benn, in fact he got himself sacked from ministerial office in order to do so.
Also should point out that Heffer was a fierce opponent of abortion, which presumably means he could not possibly have progressive views on any other issue, at least in the eyes of some of the contributors here.
Hmm, when you're all done reminiscing about Benn, isn't there something called 'the battle for ideas'? That's where people who believe in a policy (e.g. opposing 42 days) come together and present their case to the electorate in order to, for one thing, change public attitudes for the better. These machinations don't really get anyone anywhere.
1. Not sure if passing labourite is aware, but UKIP MP Bob Spink voted with the Government to extend detention to 42 days.
2. Tony Benn called Mao Tse tung 'the greatest man of the twentieth century' at a time when it must have been common knowledge that Mao had executed many people without anything approaching due process (even if the scale was still unknown), that being the case I would have thought supporting someone as liberal as David Davis would count as an improvement.
Gosh there's an awful lot of guff on this thread!
I think Dave's original post is fair comment. Personally, while I wouldn't vote campaign for Davis (partly because of his other views, partly because it would be a futile gesture as nobody would notice) I think there is a sensible left argument for - in the absence of a Labour or socialist candidate - using this campaign to keep the argument about 42 days going and changing public opinion on it. As others have said - Davis will be re-elected in the by-election; the by-election itself is virtually meaningless. But as a vehicle and a platform it could be worthwhile. I don't think a Left List candidate standing and being ignored would help much, but socialists using Davis' platform to make a much broader case for civil liberties could be worthwhile.
I saw Tony today, in Beverley, and he said it was a 'funny thing' to campaign for a conservative, but that Davis 'didn't want to lock people up'. Sometimes it is that straightforward - some of the marches I've been on in the past I've been extremely concerned about the views of some of the people marching near me (some clearly expressed on banners, etc.) but we have marched together in a common cause (e.g. anti-war demonstrations). As the election in this case is utterly irrelevant, you could really consider this to be an anti-42 days rally. Only, I'm afraid, the Tory PR stunt will get it a lot more publicity than tens of thousands of marchers.
TB is wrong on this (sorry to say)
If DD was standing as an independent 42 day candidate it might might be ok for Tony to support
But he is standing as A TORY, YES A TORY
He also supports scrapping human rights and
and importantly supports hanging
so as a Tory Home Secretary David Davis would have agreed the hanging of the Birmingham Six
oh so liberal Tony
So why doesn't Osler put himself up for election in this remote Tory safe seat? He's got as much chance as anyone and probably more money to waste than some. Answer: if you are expelled from the LP, it's damned difficult to get back in again. Can't have that!
Davis 'didn't want to lock people up'?!
Davis does want to lock people up! And the people he does are usually suffering such for supporting the correct side in the battle in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
He just doesn't want to keep possible political prisoners or POWs imprisoned before trial for quite as long as Labour.
Anyway it's not a referendum, it's a Tory standing for election to parliament.
And even if it was a referendum, no vote would be permissible for Davis. Heffer and Benn should not have aligned with Tories, etc in the Common Market referendum, they were wrong to say no (should have abstained) but they should have kept to a workers 'No' campaign.
The only time a red can possibly vote Tory would be if they were part of of some sort of national liberation front that we are members of as well e.g Congress, ANC etc - and then only in some special circumstances.
And doesn't the photo of Benn just sum him up? Can't think of a witty caption but if I could it would relate to the £100,000s of shares he was revealed to have given his son, Hilary, who he also nepotistically supported in his campaign.
It's also ironic that he is the political Godfather of no end of Labourites posting on this blog - but he wasn't as bad, back in the day, as they are now.
His 81 campaign had far better politics than McDonnell's - On my site I showed how the latter's was somewhat worse than the Limehouse declaration!
Punchie , you are a prat. Talking to people lots of misgivings re the Benn stance - with which I on balance agree. To suggest John McDonnell is to right of SDP is just bollocks.Sorry.
No, Your Worship, you are wrong.
See http://southpawpunch.blogspot.com/2007/05/soon.html for part of the programmes of the McDonnell and Meacher campaign from last year
and then compare that to http://southpawpunch.blogspot.com/2007/07/eight-criminals-who-said-this-web-names.html for quotes from the Limehouse declaration and see, for example,
- ‘The end to privatisation of public services’ - McDonnell. (but no mention or renationalisation or half way houses).
‘We should not merely reverse these market downsides, but celebrate a strong revival of the public sector and expand it in areas such as free law centres, affordable housing and rail travel’ - Meacher.
“We favour competitive public enterprise, co-operative ventures and profit-sharing. – Limehouse
Incidentally Meacher isn’t as right as McDonnell in quite a few aspects.
LRC v New Labour is similar in many ways to SDP v Tories. I don’t think some of you realise just how far right you have been dragged – or done the dragging.
In 25 years, from Miltant to the Mayor’s parlour. And in 25 years hence?
I'm sorry but this reveals so much political ignorance I'm quite astonished: the idea that Benn and Heffer were aligned with the Tories in the '75 'No' campaign: Tory policy was 'Yes', Labour policy was 'No'. Some Tories campaigned for a 'No' and, as such, there were some joint 'No' rallies. But there was far more evidence of 'Yes' voters on platforms with Tories - indeed pretty much all of them! What's your point? I assume, from your later comments, that you feel socialists should never support any reforms or 'transitional demands' and that collaborators of all kinds should be shot? In which case I'll debate with you again in a few years when you grow up.
I don't like the idea of backing a Tory. Indeed, as I've said, I couldn't vote for him if I lived there, and I wouldn't campaign for him. But if I had a profile I probably would join the campaign, because it's a platform that can be used. I've no particular problem with using somebody else's platform to get the arguments across.
Sorry Fartpants, your reasoning is as smelly as your trousers.
It wouldn't be an expulsion offence to stand if there isn't a Labour candidate. Oh, and I'm skint.
This is a job for a political organisation with membership in Yorkshire that could put some campaigners on the ground.
Such as ? West Yorkshire LRC probably has enough campaigners to get out there but we could not stand an "LRC candidate" as I think ( but not entirely sure) that would be a Lesley Mahmoud experience and we would get kicked out of the Labour Party as there IS a Labour PPC. People seem to be getting distracted by the obvious discomfort we all feel about Benn campoaigning for David Davis. It is Brown's intransigence and the Government's cowardice - and spineless PLP- which has caused this farrago. Davis very definitely isn't the solution- but New Labour has caused the problem.Their answer is just to ignore it.
Hang the Birminngham Six
Hang Nelson Mandela
Vote David Davis
Yes the new TB slogan
sorry Tony hes a right wing Tory standing as a right wing Tory candidate
Your worship,
I did reply last night but it appears to have been marked as spam (too many links?) or purged.
In short I referred you to articles on my site about the McDonnell and Meacher campaigns and also another article about the text of the Limehouse declaration and I pointed out how the latter was less rightwing than the former on a point or two.
Whilst you may now occupy a position on the far left of the Labour party you forget how rightward that position is now compared to 25 years ago.
Duncan,
You are contradicting yourself. As you say there were some joint 'No' rallies, so far from being 'ignorant', Benn and Heffer were aligned with the Tories in the '75 'No' election. That may be acceptable to a Labour type like, but not to a socialist - your conclusions are also without any intelligent basis.
Like many a Labour type you attempt to mislead about reforms. I support reforms although appreciate their transitional nature and wouldn't let myself be bought off with a few bananas.
You however appear to think the extension of internment from 7 (14?) days under the Tories to the 30(?) days that would be acceptable to Davis to be a reform - it is of course, it's a reform to the worse.
Tony Benn called Mao Tse tung 'the greatest man of the twentieth century' at a time when it must have been common knowledge that Mao had executed many people without anything approaching due process (even if the scale was still unknown),
IIRC, he did that in about the same year that Jon Pertwee did it in an episode of "Doctor Who". So, I guess Mao's terror wasn't *that* widely known about.
Southpawpunch - I am neither contradicting myself nor are my conclusions without any intelligent basis! You cheeky sod!
The Conservative Party was pretty much united in wanting a 'Yes' vote for the referendum. The 'No' campaign was led by the Labour Left (and was supported by the Labour Party special conference). One or two Tories supported a 'No' vote.
I'm too young to remember any joint 'No' rallies. I know Wilson put out guidelines for Ministers saying that they shouldn't share platforms with people from other parties. There was some suggestion that the guidelines were broken very early on when Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams spoke on platforms with Tories. So maybe the guidelines were put to one side, I don't know. Eric Heffer resigned from the government because he couldn't accept the guidelines (but I doubt it was that aspect of them that bothered him). Although Benn was demoted after the referendum, I'm not sure that he or Foot or Castle did actually speak on any platforms with Tories on this. In fact I have heard Tony say that he chooses not to share platforms with Tories on Europe because of the different reasons they have for coming to their conclusion. However, I don't know that he never has.
The point though is that, if any Tories went on 'No' platforms in 75 it was them aligning themselves with socialists, not the other way round!
As for whether I'm a labourist. Yes I am, and proud of it too. But I'm also a socialist, and don't appreciate the suggestion that I'm not.
You miss the point entirely in your final sentence. I don't know which sectlet you belong to, but your credo would appear to be one which will make you very happy while achieving very little. Good for you, but it isn't especially interesting or useful for the rest of us.
SPP
"I... wouldn't let myself be bought off with a few bananas."
A very principled stance for a PR Executive.
Perhaps, while the huddled bedraggled masses wait for their reforms, you can keep their fighting spirit up with some inspiring talk about self-sacrifice and not settling for bananas, as you sashay towards the nearest restaurant for an all-expenses-paid boozy lunch.
Duncan, Photo of Enoch Powell alongside Labour MP for (Woolwich, I think) on platform of Common Market No (note, not a 'Labour Says No' campaign) meeting in 1975. http://www.jamd.com/search?assettype=g&assetid=79721394&text=%2522enoch+powell%2522+1975+
If I was caught, as you are, on The No campaign, issue, swallowing Benn's bluster - '(Davis) didn't want to lock people up' (oh yes he does!) or seeing 30(?) days as a reform!, I'd not think it wise to try and bluster my way out by saying 'You miss the point entirely in your final sentence.'
Clearly I don't and you obviously aren't making sense. You sound very suited to be in the same party as our oppressive and warmongering government.
Ed - average wage in the PR 'industry' (minus quite a few unpaid interns)- maybe £25K, average hours - considerable, job security - majority contract workers but average IQ level - somewhat (but not always) above a clearly uninformed idiot like you.
I trust you're in the NUJ, SPP
Well I can say with absolute certainty that Benn didn't appear on a Common Market No platform with Powell (because a conversation they had after the referendum was the first time they had spoken since a row in 74 election. (I might also add that, by this time, Powell was an Ulster Unionist MP rather than a Tory one, but that's beside the point). So your photo doesn't 'catch' me in any way. And you still miss the point; but frankly I don't care sufficiently about a 33-year-old referendum, nor about David Davis (who I, like you, would not choose to support) to continue this discussion.
Your anti-Benn thing is something I find annoying, but it's fairly familiar. I remember having a big row with a Sparticist, who was convinced that Tony Benn was an agent provocateur (and, by the end of the row I was as well, apparently) - designed to infect the workers with false consciousness (and, as such, deflect them from their obvious material interests - reading 'Workers Hammer' and attending meetings with this earnest-but-scary lass, apparently).
Yeah, the Sparts have got a right thing about Benn - they had "hang Tony Benn the little Englander" banners on one of the anti-war demos earlier this decade (inimitably hand-written, as ever). Unfortunately I've never seen any evidence that the Sparts are not just a group of about 10 oddballs living in one Hackney squat.
I had a mate who joined but I haven't seen him since (I'm not sure the two things are connected, but maybe - perhaps it was easier not to see me than to hang me!!)
Perhaps that's the answer to the Davis thing though - in the spirit of the Sparts, we could go and campaign in Howden, on the same side as Davis, but carry banners declaring 'hang David Davis, the pro-death-penalty bastard!'
Duncan, as you will be aware the photo was but one of the gaping hole sin your arguments that I pointed out.
E10, I'm not a member of the NUJ. I'd like to be a trade union member but it is just a futile gesture working in a succession of different non union workplaces for a month or two.
I'll also pay £50 to a charity of your choice, with evidence to you, if you provide convincing proof - press reports or photo of any such Spartacist League banner.
I have little time for the Spartacists (see my site) but unlike Labour opportunists like you I follow a revolutionary code and don't smear my Left political opponents.
The Sparts are serious about their politics and consider themselves orthodox and would not countenance such a slogan about killing, as you describe. Plays to the Labour gallery though, doesn't it? - Mad Sparts and other Trot scum, ho, ho, ho.
It's still worth joining the union, SPP - members of unions like ours are increasingly working in atomised, isolated places; doesn't mean they won't need a union at some point. And even if you don't need one, there's the importance of showing support and solidarity to those who do.
I follow a revolutionary code...
Morse? Rugby League? The code of the wild west?
http://www.socialequality.org.uk/
There is a socialist standing, admittedly from one of the worlds crazier sects but och well I'd probably still vote them.
see, i understand "my 2006 decision to rejoin the Labour Party" about as much as I understand Ken Livingstone joining the Labour Party in 1968. Especially as "A quarter of a century later, my thinking has evolved in a direction both more Marxist and more libertarian" - i'm not being funny or owt, none of these things make sense whichever way i look at it.
As for the D.Davis thing: for a right-wing Tory to outflank the Labour Govt on the left over human rights/civil rights is just a sign of how vicious this crowd [ie your fellow party members] have become.
SPP - your pompous, sanctimonious claims to follow a 'revolutionary code' (its good to see Pirates of the Caribbean influencing modern socialist thought...) don't even stand up to a cursory glance at this thread, let along further scrutiny!
SPP on joining the NUJ: "it is just a futile gesture"
Since when have you been against futile gestures? Your entire political stance is an extravagantly futile gesture - it's the revolutionary mass movement of one man and his dressing-up-box.
after some discussion (often robust) we are standing a candidate.
http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2008/06/greens-will-stand-for-civil-liberties.html
"he [Mao] did that in about the same year that Jon Pertwee did it in an episode of "Doctor Who". So, I guess Mao's terror wasn't *that* widely known about." Late Dispatch
1. The New York Times was writing about the Terrors in 1975. Rumours of executions had arisen much earlier.
2. The writers of Doctor Who can be forgiven for not knowing, as an experienced member of Parliament I expect more from Benn than I do from Jon Pertwee.
3. If you support Cuba, which still has the death penalty without the safe guards David Davis is defending, you really can't attack Davis for supporting the death penalty for multiple murderers found guilty through a fair trail.
Correction on my previous post, the name in the square brackets should be 'Tony Benn' not 'Mao'.
Yes but DD would have supported the hanging of the Birmingham Six and supported the hanging of Nelson Madela as Thatcher called him a Terrorist
There can be no defence for the death penalty
Where does Davis stand on the use of DNA data base with regards to rape !!!!!
or Clause 28 on Gay Rights
``the man who once pushed the Labour Party as far to the left as it was ever to go.''
Um... Excuse me? Nye Bevan? Keir Hardie? Or is that just ancient history :-(
habeas corpus, and the right to face your accuser,freedom of speech and right to assembly are the pillars of real unalienable rights and free peoples.whatever your reasons for getting rid of them.Terrorism and "security" are the two most used by totalitarians too. People are gradually begining to see through them when they talk about suspending them to preserve the british way of life. They only reinforce the view and supporting historical fact that says all socialist societies end up as totalitarian states. What tony benn has done, is something which he knows is right if we don't want to live in a society in which the stalin gulags can operate. Nobody wants to live in a country where you can be marched out of your house in the middle of the night and incarcerated for a length of time without knowing the reason why. That is something that many people don't believe can happen without actually being able to state why that could not happen with any serious reasoning. Under this despotic globalist government it's becoming more like a certainty to me.