Tony Benn was brought up to believe that one must not only lead an industrious and useful life but also account for it. And few, not even Samuel Pepys, have accounted for their lives in more detail. “When I die,” Benn once remarked, “I will present the Almighty with 18 millions words and say, ‘What do you make of it?’ ”
This is the 10th and final volume of Benn diaries. It covers the two years between May 2007 and July 2009 with a brief chapter at the end bringing his life up to date. Different from previous volumes, it depicts a man who has led a life of frenetic activity coming to grips with increasing frailty and ultimately mortality.
Benn, who has been a feature of British politics for more than 60 years, is now in his 89th year – he says 90th, but at his time of life he can surely be forgiven the occasional exaggeration. Even so, between frequent bouts of depression, exhaustion and hospital visits, he continues to lead a life that would wear out many younger men. There are entries that begin, “Up at 5am to catch the train to Edinburgh,” “Up at 4.30, so I had about three and a half hours’ sleep . . . cab to Paddington.”
For decades there has scarcely been a demonstration or a picket line on which he has not featured. On occasion his enthusiasm exceeds that of the workers whose struggle he is supporting. This, for example, is his entry for October 15th, 2007: “Just before six I turned up at the local post office thinking they’d be on strike over planned closures, but they weren’t . . .”
Benn’s younger son, Joshua, once remarked to me that trying to keep tabs on his father was like trying to keep an eye on a teenager. “You ring at midnight and he’s not yet home. You ring again at 7.30 in the morning and he’s already gone out.”
Despite his alienation Benn retains a toehold in the British Establishment. The launch party for this book was held in Speaker’s House, his eldest son, Hilary, is a member of the shadow cabinet, and a daughter-in-law worked for Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. But with every day that passes his alienation grows to the point at which he now seems to inhabit a world peopled only by serial dissidents.
At one point, much to the embarrassment of his family, he seriously considers contesting the elections for the European Parliament on an anti-EU slate organised by the far-left trade unionist Bob Crowe.
There is a touch of King Lear about Benn in old age. His denunciations grow steadily more intemperate. On Tony Blair: “When I hear his voice, it makes my blood run cold.” On Gordon Brown: “A neo conservative Republican”. On New Labour: “I feel absolutely and utterly betrayed.” On parliamentary democracy: “Some sort of fraudulent device for pretending to people that they can change things.” On Barack Obama: “Perhaps . . . another Tony Blair” (this just two days after the 2008 presidential election, before Obama has even taken office).
On occasion he can be downright irresponsible: “Parliament belongs to the past. The streets belong to the future,” he told a crowd in Trafalgar Square on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. “They really liked that,” he adds. I bet they did.
Right about Iraq
And yet, and yet . . . He has been right about the Iraq catastrophe, and he is entitled to think that the near collapse of the financial system in the autumn of 2008 bears out his analysis of capitalism. "When I advocated nationalisation of the banks people said I was absolutely bonkers," he remarks in 2008 as the then chancellor, Alistair Darling, does just that. Neoliberalism he describes (before the crash) as "legalised gambling". He is not wrong about that either.
There are moments, too, when one can't resist a little cheer. Such as when, in a fit of cowardice, the BBC refuses to allow the Disasters Emergency Committee to appeal for humanitarian aid while the Israelis are pounding Gaza to smithereens. Invited live on to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 to discuss the matter, Benn twice reads out the address to which listeners can send donations.
There are some flashes of self-doubt. “I’m a bit down. It’s partly age and partly that, when I look back on my life, I’ve been so obsessed with myself all the time.”
Elsewhere there are flashes of the humour that, over the years, has endeared Benn to many who are not of his political persuasion. This, for example, when Age Concern refuses to insure him for a trip to South Africa: “So I am now uninsurable . . . what you might call a reminder, by means of market forces, that I am legally almost dead.”
What shines through, too, is Benn’s love of his family, his pride in the achievements of his children and grandchildren, loving references to his late wife, Caroline, and elder brother, Michael, who died in the second World War.
One of the most remarkable things about Benn is his sheer longevity. He was born into the Labour establishment. The family home was a house on the Thames Embankment, a few hundred metres from the Palace of Westminster. The next-door neighbours were Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who were among the founders of the Labour Party.
In his youth he shook hands with Gandhi and Lloyd George and witnessed Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts breaking up a political gathering in the East End of London.
It was as natural for him, the son and grandson of MPs, to enter parliament as it was for the son of a Durham miner to follow his father into the pit. He was first elected aged just 25 and, with minor interruptions, remained in parliament for almost 50 years. Three generations of Benns have featured in Labour cabinets, and there may yet be a fourth: his granddaughter Emily has already fought her first general election, aged just 18. The Benns are a dynasty.
In the 12 years since he left parliament his appetite for the fray remains undimmed. Unusually for an elderly political has-been, he has made friends with younger generations. Invitations flood in. He performs at the Glastonbury Festival and fills theatres the length and breadth of the country. The media still beat a path to his door.
Friends and admirers who all have walk-on parts in this volume include the musicians Billy Bragg and Brian Eno, the poet Ben Zephaniah, the actor Saffron Burrows and the newscasters Natasha Kaplinsky and Kate Silverton.
Over 60 years Benn has passed through several incarnations: pillar of the Labour establishment, left-wing bogeyman, national treasure. He is showered with awards and recognised everywhere he goes. On buses and trains people come up and shake his hand. Strangers pay his restaurant bill. But this is not Benn at his best.
As his friend of many years, it pains me to say this, but the beautiful title is not matched by the quality of the content. I prefer to think of this final volume from the old master not as a great work of politics or literature but as a lap of honour.
Chris Mullin is a former Labour minister and the author of three widely acclaimed volumes of diaries which chart the rise and fall of new Labour.
