eindhovendee Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Their policies were shite because they were too left-wing. Blair and Brown revitalised the party, made us electable and brought us to government. They saved the party. Everything. Blair and Brown got on with the job and did good, rather than the Skinners in the party who are happy to sit in opposition feeling good about themselves. I really hate politics and politicians because they are mostly complete c***s but I've got to say the above post is one of the reasons I hate them so much. "Revitalising the party and making us electable"? In other words turning the Labour Party into something completely different than what it had stood for? "Blair and Brown did good"! f**k me. I liked Tony Benn, you knew what you were getting, what he stood for, and rightly or wrongly he argued his case passionately. Quote from the Huff Post. "Everyone could be a target, from the civil service, to the Tories, from Marx, to Jesus, and often US Presidents. Margaret Thatcher was his great adversary, but a woman he admired for her convictions, saying, "She believes in something, it is an old fashioned idea". Wonder if he thought that about the boys that did good. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chomp my root Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Nah, you can fire up all their great achievements if you like. It doesn't matter if they were the best/worst in the history of politics. To claim its "Its not even up for discussion" is a daft think to claim on a thread thats gone down that path. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ayrmad Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 It doesn't matter if they were the best/worst in the history of politics. To claim its "Its not even up for discussion" is a daft think to claim on a thread thats gone down that path. It's P&B, grow a pair. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chomp my root Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 I really hate politics and politicians because they are mostly complete c***s but I've got to say the above post is one of the reasons I hate them so much. "Revitalising the party and making us electable"? In other words turning the Labour Party into something completely different than what it had stood for? "Blair and Brown did good"! f**k me. I liked Tony Benn, you knew what you were getting, what he stood for, and rightly or wrongly he argued his case passionately. Quote from the Huff Post. "Everyone could be a target, from the civil service, to the Tories, from Marx, to Jesus, and often US Presidents. Margaret Thatcher was his great adversary, but a woman he admired for her convictions, saying, "She believes in something, it is an old fashioned idea". Wonder if he thought that about the boys that did good. All this talk on threads like this about what THEY stood for is should be irrelevant, they're supposed to represent us not themselves. All serious politicians whore themselves to parties above everything else its only when they become 'established' that they start getting 'bolshie' because they reckon they can. If they feel that strongly start their own parties. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banana Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 A man of principles, humanity and integrity, not a fucking self-serving charlatan like most of the wankers in politics. RIP 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 He did have principles and integrity, you can't deny that, You also can't deny that his principles and integrity cost his party dear during the period when his influence on the Labour Party was at it's highest. Nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, leaving the EU (EEC at the time) and increasing taxes to pip-squeaking levels were comprehensively defeated at the ballot box. I also think his attitudes in terms of foreign policy could be simplistic - his 'interview' with Saddam Hussein prior to the Iraq War was sycophantic in the extreme ("Do you, Mr President, have a message for the worldwide anti-War movement?" being the closing question IIRC). I do admire his holding to principles, even when they have become relatively unfashionable. You can compare him to Thatcher in that while they may not have been rigid ideologues they had beliefs to fall back on, convictions that guided them and informed their decisions. I don't think you can say that that is the case with many leading poltiicians these days. His diaries are fantastic, fascinating insights into politics. I think the ones that are the most important are the diaries from the late 1970s and early 1980s when he was in government and then was a leading figure in the Labour Party. The discussions in Cabinet meetings he detailed are fascinating. He also had an eye for small details, which make them quite funny. He was also hugely influential in ways that don't seem to have been discussed - he was a leading advocate of taking the choice of the leadership of major parties away from MPs and to the wider party/Trade Union membership, something that all parties have now adopted; he proposed the first national referendum ever held in Britain, on the EEC in 1975 (his side lost clearly) and his renouncment of his peerage paved the way for others to do so and also allowed Lord Douglas-Home to become the Tory leader not long afterwards. On a personal level you can't read his diaries and not be moved by his devotion to his wife and family - his wife died just over ten years ago and the real pain and loneliness he suffered following her death. His immense admiration, devotion to and pride in his children, even when they split from him polticially, also shines through the volumes. It's also a testament to him that he maintained so many friendships across poltical divides, his diaries detailed him having good relations with Ian Paisley, Margaret Thatcher, Enoch Powell and others. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 This is absolutely brilliant - http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7550000/7550123.stm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ayrmad Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 This is absolutely brilliant - http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7550000/7550123.stm That goes some way to explaining his stranger views. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 He did have principles and integrity, you can't deny that, You also can't deny that his principles and integrity cost his party dear during the period when his influence on the Labour Party was at it's highest. Nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, leaving the EU (EEC at the time) and increasing taxes to pip-squeaking levels were comprehensively defeated at the ballot box. I also think his attitudes in terms of foreign policy could be simplistic - his 'interview' with Saddam Hussein prior to the Iraq War was sycophantic in the extreme ("Do you, Mr President, have a message for the worldwide anti-War movement?" being the closing question IIRC). I do admire his holding to principles, even when they have become relatively unfashionable. You can compare him to Thatcher in that while they may not have been rigid ideologues they had beliefs to fall back on, convictions that guided them and informed their decisions. I don't think you can say that that is the case with many leading poltiicians these days. His diaries are fantastic, fascinating insights into politics. I think the ones that are the most important are the diaries from the late 1970s and early 1980s when he was in government and then was a leading figure in the Labour Party. The discussions in Cabinet meetings he detailed are fascinating. He also had an eye for small details, which make them quite funny. He was also hugely influential in ways that don't seem to have been discussed - he was a leading advocate of taking the choice of the leadership of major parties away from MPs and to the wider party/Trade Union membership, something that all parties have now adopted; he proposed the first national referendum ever held in Britain, on the EEC in 1975 (his side lost clearly) and his renouncment of his peerage paved the way for others to do so and also allowed Lord Douglas-Home to become the Tory leader not long afterwards. On a personal level you can't read his diaries and not be moved by his devotion to his wife and family - his wife died just over ten years ago and the real pain and loneliness he suffered following her death. His immense admiration, devotion to and pride in his children, even when they split from him polticially, also shines through the volumes. It's also a testament to him that he maintained so many friendships across poltical divides, his diaries detailed him having good relations with Ian Paisley, Margaret Thatcher, Enoch Powell and others. A leading political figure in the 70, 80s. As others have said he wouldn't budge or was it principle? Always portrayed as a wide eyed mad leftie by our wonderful press. But he was far more than that. As Britain was consumed by the im all right jack greed of the Thatcher era he was at least somebody with a different take on the politics of the day. He stood for election to the highest offices in the party but failed. No surprise really. I wonder what sort of leader he would have been. Certainly more effective than Foot. Labour got elected but left the likes of Benn a long way behind. Given a choice of Benn or Blair I know who I would chose. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Joe Haines - "He was a brilliant speaker of rubbish" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banana Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Joe Haines - "He was a brilliant speaker of rubbish" A nobody speaking shite. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagfox Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Joe Haines - "He was a brilliant speaker of rubbish" Rich coming from a man who eulogised Robert Maxwell despite being aware of criminal activity before he bought over the Mirro, then writing the biography of a man who distributed the book instead of business cards. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a1974h Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 R.I.P I would loved for tony to have been PM. I remember him calling for the banks to be nationalised well before all the shit hit the fan. A man who stuck to his morals to the end. Makes tony Blair look like a cross between thatcher and Pinochet 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Danger Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 I had the pleasure of meeting him back in the 80's, he was visiting Dundee and he met with a half a dozen of us for about 90 minutes for a chat. Very charismatic in public and very engaging in private, he was very analytical and if someone made a point he didn't like or agree with he always wanted explanation or justification of it. When Labour introduced the Electoral College he came within one percent of ousting Healy for the deputy leadership. It would have been interesting to see how the party would have developed had he succeeded. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Kincardine Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 So this is a genuine 'honest to God' statement. I went outside the pub 10 minutes ago for a smoke and was asked for a light which I proffered. The bloke who lit his tab from my lighter felt the need to be sociable so we had a chat: Bloke: I see that Nigel Benn died today. Kink: No he didn't. Bloke: Well was it yesterday? Kink: I am pretty sure Nigel Benn is still alive. Bloke: No, it was on TV. He's dead. Kink: Do you mean Tony Benn? Bloke: Yes. That's him. So who Is Nigel Benn? Kink: A boxer. I'm sure he's still alive. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteeatsthemeat Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Difference between Benn and Skinner is Benn had real influence. He was a large part of the reason Labour were unelectable in the eighties, probably the time in Labour's history that we really needed to be seen as a valid party most. When people refer to Labour figures as 'principled' they usually mean 'on the left of the party', that isn't what Labour need. A left-wing Labour Party will not win elections in this country. It's all very well and good to sit happily in opposition dreaming up a fantastic socialist utopia, but Blair and Brown managed something people like Benn and Denis Skinner will never manage: actual positive change. The good that Labour have managed over the last few decades has come through pragmatism, not principles. Personally I'd rather do good than feel good. If John Smith had not died when he did,the Labour party would still be in power imo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phasma ex machina Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 If John Smith had not died when he did,the Labour party would still be in power imo. Bollox. Smith wasn't that good. Difference atween him and Peebles? Peebles deserved a by-pass.......... Now that also throws up the Independence issue, why the feck aren't the Tories behind it? ''Labour'' , would never ever ever gain power in England again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteeatsthemeat Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Was he not the looney leftist George Galloways bestest friend 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Was he not the looney leftist George Galloways bestest friend No. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTJohnboy Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 If John Smith had not died when he did,the Labour party would still be in power imo. Best Prime Minister we never had. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.