Tony Benn Quotes

I don't think people realise how the establishment became established. It simply stole the land and property off the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since.

By the end of his sixteen-course meal in Buckingham Palace, Ramsay McDonald discovered he had changed his mind about the workers owning the means of production. From now on, he felt it better that the Dukes and Duchesses should continue to own the means of production. The workers would just have to make do with what was left over.

After fifteen years I have decided to resign my membership of the Dennis The Menace Fanclub. It
brought me no benefits worth mentioning.

He referred to Aneurin Bevan as 'Urinal' Bevan. As for the working classes, they couldn't write their own names in shit on a lavatory wall. I said I thought they could.

Clement Attlee, who looked like a sadistic sanitary inspector...

You can’t have an economic structure worldwide whereby capital can move but labour can’t, and if you’re going to follow this, then labour must be able to come to wherever it’s more profitable. These are the people that are being kept out by the Asylum Bill, on the grounds that they are economic migrants and all of that, but of course all the money that’s invested abroad is economic migrant money.

The Prime Minister keeps me on around here because I make him look good.

I was stunned with outrage.

I don't think people realise how the establishment became established. They simply stole land and property from the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since.

In Labour Governments we did our best to make capitalism work in a civilised way. And we failed. It never can work. It will always exploit and oppress the people.

I never liked meat - and my son Hilary, 30 years ago, said, 'If the world ate the grain instead of feeding it to animals and killing them, there would be enough food for everybody,'

The key to any progress is to ask the question why? All the time. Why is that child poor? Why was there a war? Why was he killed? Why is he in power? And of course questions can get you into a lot of trouble, because society is trained by those who run it, to accept what goes on. Without questions we won't make any progress at all.

When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?

First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.

The way change occurs to begin with, if you come up with a good idea, like healthcare, you're ignored. If you go on you must be mad, absolutely stark-staring bonkers. If you go on after that you're dangerous. Then, if the pressure keeps up there's a pause. And then you can't find anyone at the top who doesn't claim to have thought of it in the first place. That's how progress is made.