Benn dead.

[cameronian]

No loss; discuss.

[Fenton]

He is a man who had his principals and for what I can see stuck to them  and was a great parliamentarian

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

A great orator, full of humour and knew how to pick his fights. A character that will be truly missed amounts the faceless greys of today. Saw him speak twice, each time was brilliant. He will be missed and I hope they put a statue of him in the Houses of Parlemebt.
Rest well.

[Ithoriel]

I'm with mad lemmey and Fenton. A passionate and inspiring speaker (even if you didn't agree with him) and, in a parliament of buskins, a man who stood by his principles.

UK parliament could do with more of his type on all sides of the house.

[Techno]

I'm with the three comments above.
Cheers - Phil.

[i_am_win]

No loss; discuss.

No need to be like that, I used to like his progamme.

Oh, and the way he'd go to the magic shop and have a new costumed adventure each week!

Marvelous stuff!! 

[Fenton]

 

[Jim Ando]

How come he`d come out of the changing room and be in a whole new place.

where did he get the time for debates in parliament.

couldn't care less about any politician to be honest all out to shaft me.

jim

[sunjester]

couldn't care less about any politician to be honest all out to shaft me.

jim

Sadly shows you didn't know anything about the man, possibly the only politician of the past 50+ year to truly stick to his principles.

I was far from in agreement with everything he said but he made the current crop of Tories/New Labour look like the cabinet from a Banana Republic!

[Fenton]

He must be the last of that generation to depart of Wilson, Callaghan, Healey, Heath etc

[mollinary]

A man of principle, and almost completely impractical.  True to himself and his ideals,  I am not sure if he was not also a talent wasted by his inability to bend.  Must have been very difficult to work with as a political colleague.   That said, Cam, I hope others will be more charitable about us when it comes to our passing.

Mollinary

[Luddite]

The greatest politician, parliamentarian, and democrat of the last 60 years.

A terrible loss to humanity.

He encouraged us.

[marie]

Good Bloke..

[Steve J]

Very interesting interview with Shirley Williams on PM tonight re: Tony Benn. Broadly speaking:
- Very principled.
- Great orator.
- Prevented the Labour party from being 'electable' for circa 18 years due to his influence on their manifestos etc.
- Only wanted his view to prevail in cabinet meetings etc, thus causing internal dissent within the party.

Another commentator pointed out that his support for Concorde was pretty much based on the fact that it would gaurantee jobs for his constituents. A point of view corroborated by my friend whose Dad worked on Concorde. Did you know the pilots seat alone cost £70 million pounds to develop and that's not at todays prices ?

[Steeleye]

Never liked the man.