Would Bennism have been better than Thatcherism ?

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  • thenetworkbabethenetworkbabe Posts: 45,542
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    petertard wrote: »
    They got this programme on the tv which shows Benn's ideas for industry, to nationalise as much as Thatcher privatised. Would we have been better off with Bennism than Thatcherism ?

    Benn was psychologically driven by a desire to get away from his family background, plus possibly a political ambition that took him to strange places. He migrated from being a modernising Labour cabinet minister, to a far left ranter and fellow traveller. He was regarded as an irresponsible crackpot by, all but the far left of, his own party and the majority of voters would never vote for him. In office he demonstrated why his polices didn't work by giving us Concorde, and out of office he became a mouth piece for the far left Unions, militant and the Soviet Union. He argued for extreme socialism at precisely the time it was failing everywhere - from Cambodia to Cuba to Russia to China, and when it was already being junked by the new Russian and Chinese leaderships. His policies , apart from on nuclear weapons, are now only followed in N Korea.
  • LateralthinkingLateralthinking Posts: 8,027
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    Benn was psychologically driven by a desire to get away from his family background, plus possibly a political ambition that took him to strange places. He migrated from being a modernising Labour cabinet minister, to a far left ranter and fellow traveller. He was regarded as an irresponsible crackpot by, all but the far left of, his own party and the majority of voters would never vote for him. In office he demonstrated why his polices didn't work by giving us Concorde, and out of office he became a mouth piece for the far left Unions, militant and the Soviet Union. He argued for extreme socialism at precisely the time it was failing everywhere - from Cambodia to Cuba to Russia to China, and when it was already being junked by the new Russian and Chinese leaderships. His policies , apart from on nuclear weapons, are now only followed in N Korea.

    Your first sentence is very good on key parts of his psychology. I have been thinking about his drives in the last few days too and attempting to understand my past perspectives in relation to it. I was not alone in "buying" the media portrayal of him from the mid 1970s. All those common perceptions of him as a dangerous nut. I associated him closely with the left wing militancy of those times. But as Shirley Williams has said, he was not so much with them - he was much too independent - as under the impression that they were mainly well meaning youngsters who could partially be won round. That era of trendy violence was off putting and even disturbing to many of us. To those outside the Labour Party, it seemed inextricably linked with the gross economic mismanagement of Callaghan and Healy. That linkage, though, was down to the newspapers mainly. Inside the party, the divisions were as much about the arguments on its own future viability as any detrimental impact on the actual running of this country.

    I don't ask myself why I joined the SDP in 1981 as the reasoning is pretty obvious and largely justifiable. The Labour Governments between 1974 and 1979 had been a disaster. The coalition with the Liberals towards the end of that period did lead to a slight improvement. A new fairly similar party represented a new start and it initially seemed measured and orderly. What I have questioned in recent days is why I should have taken to Benn as a person as much as I did from the 1990s. In parallel I was continuing to vote Liberal Democrat at least until the early 2000s. Certainly the experience of Blair had a negative impact and I was moving home towards the newish Green Party. I think, though, a lot of it was to do with a sense that my perspectives were not quite right early on and the idea that he was changing in his role. For example, while the SDP in its very early years had quite a lot to recommend it, it was Jenkins with whom I identified most closely politically, notwithstanding that I have always liked Williams too. I think in that identification with Jenkins I made something of a mistake. I don't dislike him even now and consider that he did some good things as a Labour Minister. He was also not without some reasonable character traits.

    However, what I and probably many others picked up on in that era was the position of the new party. It was centrist and even today that suits me well enough. But I think what we missed was the matter of its direction. That should have been important not merely in policy terms but in respect of Jenkins the personality. Because he was someone who had travelled upwards socially and very dramatically. He had risen up from the coal fields of his youth to prefer the company of the aristocracy more than any other group. I'm not sure that we knew it or that, I guess, he felt that such adaptation should be possible for all. Anyhow, like many others, I was in an extremely limited way at around the age of 20 travelling upwards socially too. Two decades later, my wings had long been clipped. I am not sure that it overly bothered me in terms of status as opposed to wealth. What I realised was that I had never really had any interest in being upwardly mobile in the sense of class. Attitudinally, most of the elites and in fact any people with a lot of money never had been my idea of good company. However, the rare people in those categories who were prepared to reach out to the wider population were very appealing indeed. That meant subconsciously where they were positioned mattered far less than their direction. A right to left movement rather than the typical left to right one was preferable, whether that was Benn in the current or Macmillan and Attlee in the past. Such people didn't have to dumb down but rather they broadened and deepened within the population as a whole so that there could be teaching and learning on both sides. Mutual respect is a wonderful thing.

    That was what Benn became or more accurately where he ventured. From 2001, he was a teacher and a learner, like an elder father to the masses who gathered round him in many different fields. The cultural potency of that role depended for its existence on the fact it was not constrained by the usual mechanistic structures of power. And what could easily have been utter irrelevancy - many opponents would see it as having been such - was in reality negated by the reinvigorated historical perspectives. All those references to the Levellers and the Suffragettes along with the many echoes of effectively simple liberal nonconformist traditions. For in that history of many centuries, the power play in day to day living just seemed totally trivial and ludicrously insular. It was not the great Messiah but it was a religion for those who dislike religion. It showed that when the average person dissociates moral dialogue from the political churches, such a dialogue is accessible. It also revealed that a person who stands symbolically at a point where people can listen together can do something as big as fulfil personal ambition while being both giving and modest. Furthermore, the essential message that "it is for you all to be in control of your own destiny" is not solely leftist. It is very much in line with what Conservatives promote albeit in a different way.

    So I think that helps to explain Benn's psychology more. He wasn't a centrist but in a funny sort of way he could have the impact of bringing people together centrally in a less than polarised way. Yes, it was "oppose the establishment" which was an attitude shaped by his particular background and his failure to lead the Labour Party. It was also "stand outside them and make them less relevant by building your own communities". He like many of us had come a long way. Except had we all really? When I look at the books on my shelf that were acquired in my university days, I see that one is Benn's "Arguments for Socialism" written in 1978. That in turn reminds me that I made a point of recording "The Benn Tapes" long before he ever left Parliament. Then there is the memory that I would often side in the 1990s with the likes of Meacher as he battled to green Blair's policy. And that much earlier I would have some considerable time for independent thinkers like Tam Dalyell. In fact, anything of a peaceful leftist or centrist nature was fine as long as it wasn't the mainstream Labour Party of the awful Healy and Callaghan. How the former was ever the most popular MP in Britain and the latter considered avuncular I will never know.

    What much of this now suggests to me is that some are just not cut out for mainstream politics. They may take up very significant political positions or spend their lives without political power thinking in a political way. As they talk about the left or the right or the centre, such people fix themselves into static positions. On the rare occasions that they try to move, it is invariably in directions which are reasonable from the perspectives of their own backgrounds but bound to be misinterpreted. They can also be unpopular and several decades too late. That is, unless they find some way of stepping outside of it without actually walking away. Those who can do it have all of history - and indeed geography - to roam about in and in many ways the strength of that is in its reality. The worldliness is bigger than the claustrophobic bubble of Westminster but it is also smaller and more connective so that the relationship is more familial. That was Benn in his later years directionally - and it was magnificent in its exceptional normality.
  • allaortaallaorta Posts: 19,050
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    Benn was psychologically driven by a desire to get away from his family background, plus possibly a political ambition that took him to strange places. He migrated from being a modernising Labour cabinet minister, to a far left ranter and fellow traveller. He was regarded as an irresponsible crackpot by, all but the far left of, his own party and the majority of voters would never vote for him. In office he demonstrated why his polices didn't work by giving us Concorde, and out of office he became a mouth piece for the far left Unions, militant and the Soviet Union. He argued for extreme socialism at precisely the time it was failing everywhere - from Cambodia to Cuba to Russia to China, and when it was already being junked by the new Russian and Chinese leaderships. His policies , apart from on nuclear weapons, are now only followed in N Korea.

    Benn didn't give us Concorde, it was up and running by the time he became Technology Minister and had been a project for many years before Labour came to power in 1964. We were tied into legally because Britain had insisted on a clause in the treaty, preventing either party from withdrawing without incurring the cost of the other party continuing. I personallly think we could have and should have negotiated our way out of it but the link between us and the French, on Concorde, was also political as a means of Britain entering the Common Market. I met Benn at a pre-election meeting in 1972 and asked him questions about, among other things, Concorde. It came about because in his opening speech, by which time he would have been aware that Concorde was a commercial failure, he tried to disown the whole project to which he had always been opposed.

    His answers, that evening, showed me just how duplicitous he was.
  • nottinghamcnottinghamc Posts: 11,929
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    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/18/honour-loathed-tony-benn-political-writer

    "I have just received a tremendous honour, far greater than a KCMG or an appearance on Desert Island Discs. At the launch party for Gyles Brandreth's new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, I bumped into the satirist Craig Brown, who is reviewing the latest volume of Tony Benn's diaries. In this he confides to his readers that he "loathes" me. He spotted me at some social function and says that he avoided me. What cheek! Didn't he realise that I was avoiding him?

    To be loathed by Tony Benn is something any political writer of my age would sell their grannies for. I feel humbled by his hatred. He got almost everything wrong – not least the cuckoo behaviour that helped usher in Margaret Thatcher's long reign.

    Or take his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries. He says that he was "a great admirer of Mao … he made mistakes, because everybody does". True enough. I certainly do. But my mistakes do not make me possibly the greatest mass killer in history.

    Here are the figures: Number of innocent people who died in the Great Leap Forward, through Mao's policies for the countryside and from mass executions: between 40 and 65 million. Number of deaths caused by me: 0. But Benn greatly admired Mao."

    I think that sums up a lot of more moderate Labour/Liberal supporters in the 1980's. They didn't like Thatcher, but the actions of Tony Benn and the more radical left in dragging the party further left and making it less and less electable crippled them throughout the 1980's.
  • LateralthinkingLateralthinking Posts: 8,027
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    allaorta wrote: »
    Benn didn't give us Concorde, it was up and running by the time he became Technology Minister and had been a project for many years before Labour came to power in 1964. We were tied into legally because Britain had insisted on a clause in the treaty, preventing either party from withdrawing without incurring the cost of the other party continuing. I personallly think we could have and should have negotiated our way out of it but the link between us and the French, on Concorde, was also political as a means of Britain entering the Common Market. I met Benn at a pre-election meeting in 1972 and asked him questions about, among other things, Concorde. It came about because in his opening speech, by which time he would have been aware that Concorde was a commercial failure, he tried to disown the whole project to which he had always been opposed.

    His answers, that evening, showed me just how duplicitous he was.

    The biggest champion of Concorde was Peter Thorneycroft who was very insistent in the early 1960s about the project and later Chairman of the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher. By the time of Harold Wilson's Government, it became a means of getting into the EEC which Benn supported along with many Conservatives including Ted Heath. Not that the attempt succeeded as the French had the original Thatcher in De Gaulle.

    Much has been written lately about the Attlee Government not investing in industry as much as it might have done and similar could no doubt be said of the Conservatives between 1951 and 1964. I think that Wilson's support for the "White Heat of Technology" along with the Open University was largely a response to that criticism. Concorde must in turn be considered in that light as along with the new moon tourism, it was a part of "Tomorrow's World".
  • LateralthinkingLateralthinking Posts: 8,027
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    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/18/honour-loathed-tony-benn-political-writer

    "I have just received a tremendous honour, far greater than a KCMG or an appearance on Desert Island Discs. At the launch party for Gyles Brandreth's new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, I bumped into the satirist Craig Brown, who is reviewing the latest volume of Tony Benn's diaries. In this he confides to his readers that he "loathes" me. He spotted me at some social function and says that he avoided me. What cheek! Didn't he realise that I was avoiding him?

    To be loathed by Tony Benn is something any political writer of my age would sell their grannies for. I feel humbled by his hatred. He got almost everything wrong – not least the cuckoo behaviour that helped usher in Margaret Thatcher's long reign.

    Or take his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries. He says that he was "a great admirer of Mao … he made mistakes, because everybody does". True enough. I certainly do. But my mistakes do not make me possibly the greatest mass killer in history.

    Here are the figures: Number of innocent people who died in the Great Leap Forward, through Mao's policies for the countryside and from mass executions: between 40 and 65 million. Number of deaths caused by me: 0. But Benn greatly admired Mao."

    I think that sums up a lot of more moderate Labour/Liberal supporters in the 1980's. They didn't like Thatcher, but the actions of Tony Benn and the more radical left in dragging the party further left and making it less and less electable crippled them throughout the 1980's.

    The article shows little more than chagrin. Benn's comment about Mao following his death in 1976 was very naive. It isn't realistic to say, as perhaps he implied, that an individual may have been a mass murderer but otherwise he is to be lauded. There were, though, several strands of feeling and thought behind his comment which was brief.

    First, the Soviet Union had been a disappointment for anyone looking for a radical alternative to the British system. There were not many other examples to follow worldwide and there was no question that Mao had been radical and transforming. Stalin, of course, wasn't merely disappointing but disastrous and murderous on a massive scale. But, after Khruschev, it was the Brezhnev rule that really highlighted the extent of Soviet economic and social stagnation in a climate that was steadier and more normal if only in comparative terms. Secondly, the extent of Mao's atrocities were not fully known. Kissinger told Spiegel "The suffering and starvation were known, but not in their full dimension. In any case, we dealt with China as a state; we did not endorse its moral direction. All of our European allies and Japan applauded this course". Arguably the sheer scale of it did not become clear until 2012.

    Thirdly, that interview with Kissinger focussed on Nixon resuming diplomatic relations with China in 1972. Benn's comment needs to be understood in the context of that very major development. Kissinger again - "Our talks with Beijing served a clear strategic purpose: We thought that a China and Soviet Union that balanced each other were in the Western strategic interest. Also, we thought it was very important to demonstrate to the American public, at that time divided by the Vietnam War, a new notion of international peace". The potential in that international peace initiative would have chimed with Benn's sensibilities. Fourthly, there is further context in Britain's role. Back in 1966, Wilson was noting "the diplomatic telegrams" from China. "It was, at this point, only at the level of gestures but in Peking gestures are not accidental - they included a long and friendly chat which Mao Tse Tung chose to have with our charges d'affaires at a diplomatic reception". So Benn would have been close to that in Government and Kissinger acknowledges it - "Great Britain and France had established diplomatic relations years earlier." In 1971, the People's Republic of China had been recognized as the only lawful representative of China to the UN.

    Fifthly, Benn's comment was made in a diplomatic setting in which there really wasn't any point in doing anything but speaking highly of Mao if future peace was the objective. Mao was dead and couldn't do any further harm. Furthermore, Benn would have known that he was revered in China as indeed he is still revered. It was a charm offensive. And sixthly, it might well have been a rather negative way of expressing his own anger towards the British establishment. By that time, he was in truth personally put out. Such a statement was bound to shake it up a bit, not least in the ineffectual Labour Party, where Wilson and very many others were now verbally abusing him.

    No one would seriously suggest that Benn was an advocate of mass slaughter. He was someone who consistently opposed war and to a far greater extent than most politicians. Hoggart, of course, has gone and so there is nothing to be gained by emphasising his obvious pettiness on the matter. He was highly respected by many and it is probably for the best to put the simplistic tabloid style down to nothing more than a symptom of his own ailing.
  • wallsterwallster Posts: 17,609
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    petertard wrote: »
    They got this programme on the tv which shows Benn's ideas for industry, to nationalise as much as Thatcher privatised. Would we have been better off with Bennism than Thatcherism ?

    The answer is a big fat "no".
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 2,967
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    I don't doubt that Cameron and Osborne would have had a similar policy to the banks as Blair and Brown did, somehow I think Thatcher would have kept the banking industry regulated but that's a debate for another time.

    The industry itself changed massively between 1997 and now, policy should have been changed to reflect this.

    How, under Major sbanking scandals such as Barrings happened...
  • paulschapmanpaulschapman Posts: 35,536
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    petertard wrote: »
    They got this programme on the tv which shows Benn's ideas for industry, to nationalise as much as Thatcher privatised. Would we have been better off with Bennism than Thatcherism ?

    Nationalisation had singularly failed as a way of running industries. That said Benn was a strong supporter of the UKs technology industries, the programmable electronic computer was after all invented in the UK. You have to wonder what would have happened with greater support for companies. Instead ICL became a shadow of Big Blue, eventually falling into the hands of Fujitsu.

    He was also a supporter of Concorde - although at least here the UK still has a lead in aerospace.
  • GreatGodPanGreatGodPan Posts: 53,186
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    Nationalisation had singularly failed as a way of running industries. That said Benn was a strong supporter of the UKs technology industries, the programmable electronic computer was after all invented in the UK. You have to wonder what would have happened with greater support for companies. Instead ICL became a shadow of Big Blue, eventually falling into the hands of Fujitsu.

    He was also a supporter of Concorde - although at least here the UK still has a lead in aerospace.

    Most of the industry that had previously been nationalised was taken into state ownership because it was failing under private ownership - a bad beginning?

    How many thriving industries were taken over by the state that you can think of?

    Do you regard the privatised bodies now acting as models of performance?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 6,848
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    definately no
  • Net NutNet Nut Posts: 10,286
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    Anything would have been better than Thatcherism.
  • MajlisMajlis Posts: 31,362
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    Most of the industry that had previously been nationalised was taken into state ownership because it was failing under private ownership - a bad beginning?

    How many thriving industries were taken over by the state that you can think of?

    Do you regard the privatised bodies now acting as models of performance?

    any examples of the nationalisation program actually being a success?
  • allaortaallaorta Posts: 19,050
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    Majlis wrote: »
    any examples of the nationalisation program actually being a success?

    Yes it succeeded in decimating the chances of recovery after WW2. If Labour had put more into the commercial and manufacturing industries, they could have reaped the benefits which could then have made nationalisation a better prospect.
  • redtuxredtux Posts: 1,241
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    Majlis wrote: »
    any examples of the nationalisation program actually being a success?

    Rolls Royce, Cable and Wireless off the top of my head.

    Also nationalisation != public ownership
  • warlordwarlord Posts: 3,292
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    Benn's economic policies were much the same as the policies adopted by the USSR, Cuba, North Korea and Mao's China. There is no reason to think they would have worked any better in Britain.
  • trunkstertrunkster Posts: 14,468
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    Benn was psychologically driven by a desire to get away from his family background, plus possibly a political ambition that took him to strange places. He migrated from being a modernising Labour cabinet minister, to a far left ranter and fellow traveller. He was regarded as an irresponsible crackpot by, all but the far left of, his own party and the majority of voters would never vote for him. In office he demonstrated why his polices didn't work by giving us Concorde, and out of office he became a mouth piece for the far left Unions, militant and the Soviet Union. He argued for extreme socialism at precisely the time it was failing everywhere - from Cambodia to Cuba to Russia to China, and when it was already being junked by the new Russian and Chinese leaderships. His policies , apart from on nuclear weapons, are now only followed in N Korea.

    Benn was like a lot of well off academic socialists - completely detached from reality.
  • ZeusZeus Posts: 10,459
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    My view is that Thatcher was too far to the right, and Benn was even more too far to the left.
  • SULLASULLA Posts: 149,789
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    in amongst the plaudits and platitudes today, many of his own party were saying how misguided he was.

    I think that's the truth.

    Me too.

    He will remain the darling of the naive.
  • ZimmieZimmie Posts: 1,244
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    Thatcherism is what both Tories and Labour support, they may argue bits and bods but that is it. Thatcherism has left a clown like rooney earning 300k a week with man utd cleaners get 6.50 per hr, it means companies sit on 500 billion on company funds, while consumers max out on credit cards, it is a race to lowest level with no pension, worthless houses that cannot be sold..Benn would have been a lot lot better for ordinary folk.
  • MajlisMajlis Posts: 31,362
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    redtux wrote: »
    Rolls Royce, Cable and Wireless off the top of my head.

    Hmm - arguable. RR was certainly a 'success' in that it was a temporary situation in order to save the company, it didnt exactly prove the long term viability of the concept did it?

    C&W only became a massive success after privatisation - which was not a recommendation for Nationalisation, rather the opposite.

    Also nationalisation != public ownership

    And? - does it matter? :confused:
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