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. - Tony Benn

I tell the Prime Minister that this is an ill-thought-out enterprise and will not achieve the purposes to which it is put.

[The Conservatives' Industry Act contains] the most comprehensive armoury of government control that has ever been assembled for use over private industry, far exceeding all the powers thought necessary by the last Labour government...Heath has performed a very important historical role in preparing for the fundamental and irreversible transfer in the balance of power and wealth which has to take place...The whole nature of the mixed economy operating on market forces has been transformed by this quiet revolution in a way that is not yet fully appreciated.

TONY BENN: Well, they were much better than what was there before, and they were better than what we have now. I mean, the pits, the mining industry has been privatized, and there are no pits left, and we've got 1,000 years of coal under our territory. When I was minister of energy, secretary of state by the time I left office, one-quarter of the North Sea was owned by the government. [It was owned by the] BNOC, British National Oil Corporation. It's all been sold off by Thatcher. So in the middle of the fuel crisis, you suddenly realize that the policies being pursued by a socialist government were in the interests of the public. And people see that now, you know. They're beginning to understand it now. But during the Cold War, of course, what they said was if you're against capitalism you must be an agent for the KGB; you must be working for the Kremlin; we're about to be invaded by the Red Army -- all of which was rubbish, but they used that to frighten people away from policies that really were in their own interest.