Tony Benn

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1925 age 0

   Born

2. 2007 age 82

   CreditSicko

3. 2014 age 88

   Died

• MMMichael Moore1 title
• LPLinda Peeno1 title

• I must tell the House quite frankly that if I were confronted with a Japanese at this present moment and were asked to tell him that I believed that he was wrong in the treatment of those British prisoners in his hands, I could not but accept a similar criticism from him on the question of the atom bomb. I should be quite unable to avoid it. I am afraid I must say on the question of principle here involved—this question of moral principle—that I believe it to be humbug, when so many people, women, children, old folk, were killed by the atom bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. For every individual photograph that could be produced of a wounded and battered British prisoner of war in Japanese hands, I think one could find an equally horrible photograph of a victim of the atomic bomb. [Interruption.] An hon. Friend of mine says that the two things are not comparable. I do not myself believe that it is possible to draw any distinctions in war between the brutalities on both sides.

  Tony Benn, CC BY-SA 4.0

• With inherited liberal principles, I feel that the free movement of all people is a good thing and one to be encouraged. ... The Declaration of Human Rights has for one of its Articles the right of the human being to take a nationality, to change it, and not to be denied the right arbitrarily to change it. I realise it is not as easy as that, but most of the difficulties are definable difficulties based on facts and situations which the economic planners now available to Government Departments should be able to grasp and measure. I believe that the basic problem which prevents more immigration is an economic one. ... [T]here is a nearer approach to the ideal of universal admission in the United States than there is here. I think we could learn something from that. ... If we were to work out some form of migration policy based on these lines we would be doing some service to that free movement of populations which is a vital prerequisite to understanding in all parts of the world.

  Tony Benn, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The stars were just out and the crowd were laughing and joking but underneath it all was the tragedy of 6 million dead in the gas chambers and the miracle of a home for Jews after 1,900 years of pogrom and ghetto.

  Tony Benn, CC BY-SA 4.0

• It is we, on this side, who object to dreams of empire, because we think in terms of free association and we believe that the empire that was built up was based on force and domination by this country.

  Tony Benn, CC BY-SA 4.0

• There can be no greater friend of Israel in this House than I am. I say that quite sincerely. I have pressed that Israel should have arms in the present situation. I believe that if ever there was a case for it, it is today, with the massive supply of Russian war materials now going into Egypt, and that Israel should have more arms at once.

  Tony Benn, CC BY-SA 4.0

• [T]he Treaty of Rome which entrenches laissez-faire as its philosophy and chooses Bureaucracy as its administrative method will stultify effective national economic planning without creating the necessary supranational planning mechanisms for growth and social justice under democratic control. ... [T]he political inspiration of the EEC amounts to a belief in the institutionalisation of NATO, which will harden the division of Europe and encourage the emergence of a new nuclear superpower, thus worsening East–West relations and making disarmament more difficult.

  Tony Benn, CC BY-SA 4.0

Nationalities

United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Cause of death

chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Languages

English

Education

Central Foundation Boys' School, New College, Westminster School