More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007

Description

'There is a passion in Benn's writing and speaking that far transcends the miserable aspirations of most contemporary politicians' Paul Foot, Guardian When Tony Benn left Parliament after 51 years he quoted his wife Caroline's remark that now he would have 'more time for politics'. And so this has proved- in the first seven years of this century he has helped reinvigorate national debate through public meetings, mass campaigns and appearances in the media, passionately bringing moral and political issues to wide audiences. And throughout, as ever, he has been keeping his diaries. Commenting on the demise of the New Labour project from the re-election of Tony Blair in 2001 to the ultimate foreign policy disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq, he gives other prescient accounts of the government's by-passing of Cabinet, parliament and the party, of the 'war on terror', the debate about Islam, globalisation and the changes in British society. Although he is no longer in power or in parliament, Tony Benn remains a figure of enormous respect whose direct views, honestly expressed, have often awakened the national conscience. His latest Diaries, human and challenging in turn, are an enthralling read.

Radical statesman and Member of Parliament for over fifty years, Tony Benn is the pre-eminent diarist of his generation. His political activity continued after 'retirement' through mass meetings, broadcasts and in more recent years through social media. A widower since 2000, Tony Benn died at his home in London on 14th March 2014.

This is a lovely book; warm, humane, genuinely revelatory and, on occasions, a touch surreal * Sunday Times * [Benn's] interest in politics has transmuted into an interest in individual human beings. And through all the pain and sorrow, there is a new kind of freedom in his thoughts and in his writing * Mail on Sunday * There is something amusing on almost every page of these diaries. Tony Benn loves paradox, and looking at things from a different angle to the one you might expect. He tells us at the start that the old have a great deal to learn from the young, and a delightful air of unreality hangs over his writing * Daily Telegraph * A compelling, often rollicking read * Observer * Inspiring and touching * Financial Times *