dead Benn There, Done It?

[The Four Horsemen 25]

Tony Benn has been rushed to hospital from the Labour conference, according to Sky.

[Guest iain]

Im desperately trying to get mor einfo on this..as far as I can gather Tony Benn collapsed and was treated by paramedics before beign rushed to hospital by ambulance.He will be kept in hospital over night but its not thought his life is in danger at the moment but details are still sketchy.No doubt thi swil be a big story on the news th is evening as Tony Benn is a legendary figure.Personally I like the guy,and hope he pulls through.

[millwall32 106]

Me too....but. If he does get through this we sholuld at least consider him for 2006.

 

Hope he pulls through though.

[themaninblack 2,112]

It would be with a heavy heart to include him on my list of fatalities for 2006 but...

[Guest iain]

some late news...Tony Benn remains in a stable condition t his morning but is believed to have sustained head injuries..he will be assessed by a brain specialaist this morning..his son Hillary is at his bedside.to be honest im not sure what to make of this..is it more serious than first t hought ?Mo Mowlam died 2 weeks after falling and hitting her head after all

[VileBody 11]

Just before we embark on another orgy of "aren't real Lefties the salt of the earth etc, innit", can I quote from a conversation between Benn and the Chinese First Secretary which is mentioned in Benn's diaries:

 

"I said how much I admired Mao Tse-Tung, or Zedong, the greatest man of the 20th century."

 

Now if this was part of the collected ramblings of a student union leader in the 60's, we would hardly be surprised. The entry in fact appears in June 1996 when Benn was 71.

 

Mao is estimated to have directly or indirectly murdered over 70 million people. Can anyone who wants to post rubbish about how Benn is a jolly old pipe smoking buffer who "stuck to his principles" remember that within the last ten years he has endorsed the worst mass-murderer in history. More generally those "principles" were the same as those in whose name Mao and Stalin acted.

 

The man is an old lunatic and apologist for homicidal regimes (a la Galloway, incidentally). He'd have been sent to a Gulag in 2 minutes if he'd not had the good fortune to live in country where we let people come out with any old bollocks.

 

That said I wish him a full recovery, since his idiocies are now part of the national fabric and can certainly provide a good laugh.

[DevonDeathTrip 2,288]

I hope Tony Benn gets well soon. These lefty salt of the earth types are just too good to lose!

 

I worry about his kidneys though. By his own admission he drinks about 35 cups of tea a day. That's an awful lot of fluid to process through aged internal organs.

That coupled with his pipe smoking and excessive workload (for an 80 year old)

might make him an outside bet for DL 2006.

[Slave to the Grave 22]

I hope Tony Benn gets well soon.  These lefty salt of the earth types are just too good to lose! 

 

I worry about his kidneys though.  By his own admission he drinks about 35 cups of tea a day.  That's an awful lot of fluid to process through aged internal organs.

That coupled with his pipe smoking and excessive workload (for an 80 year old)

might make him an outside bet for DL 2006.

That's an awful lot of trips to the toilet, particularly if his ageing prostate is putting on the squeeze. Good cardio-vascular exercise, particularly if he has an upstairs toilet. May cancel out some of the pipe smoking damage.

[maryportfuncity 10,013]

Can't say I've noticed any of the dodgy foreign politians he's been happy to meet over the years expressing concerns for his health over the last couple of days.

[Teddy 21]

Can't say I've noticed any of the dodgy foreign politians he's been happy to meet over the years expressing concerns for his health over the last couple of days.

That's because most of them died off years ago, whilst the rest probably thought he was already dead!

[maryportfuncity 10,013]

Or maybe the surviving ones took him for a mug then and don't give a S**t now.

[Tempus Fugit 212]

.

[VileBody 11]

Not meaning to be a smart-arse (not too much anyway), but would you prefer a politican with genuinely held but profoundly wrong or offensive opinions, or one whose views you support but who is prepared to be dishonest to achieve them?

 

And before we get too dewy-eyed about "old school politicians", (a.) I think you'll find that politicians have been telling porkies for quite a long time before Benn turned up; (b.) Benn was a member of one of the most bent governments of the 20th centruy under Wilson; and (c.) it's a damn sight easier to stick to your principles once you're a busted flush in politics - as Benn was after Kinnochio's election as Labour leader (cf Heath, Howe, Lamont, Cook etc).

 

If Benn had ever held real power he'd have been about as trustworthy as Alasdair Campbell on a dark night with the keys to the tuck shop.

[Guest iain]

Michael Foot doesnt appear to have made it to the conference this year..is he finally on the way out i wonder?

[maryportfuncity 10,013]

He'd definitely have been on the way out if he'd had to sit there and listen to Jack Straw's speech. Probably for heckling alongside 82 year old Walter Wolfgang. He didn't lead the party with the idea that it would come to its present state of being a bunch of surrogate tories.

[millwall32 106]

Just before we embark on another orgy of "aren't real Lefties the salt of the earth etc, innit", can I quote from a conversation between Benn and the Chinese First Secretary which is mentioned in Benn's diaries:

 

"I said how much I admired Mao Tse-Tung, or Zedong, the greatest man of the 20th century."

 

Now if this was part of the collected ramblings of a student union leader in the 60's, we would hardly be surprised. The entry in fact appears in June 1996 when Benn was 71.

 

Mao is estimated to have directly or indirectly murdered over 70 million people. Can anyone who wants to post rubbish about how Benn is a jolly old pipe smoking buffer who "stuck to his principles" remember that within the last ten years he has endorsed the worst mass-murderer in history. More generally those "principles" were the same as those in whose name Mao and Stalin acted.

 

The man is an old lunatic and apologist for homicidal regimes (a la Galloway, incidentally). He'd have been sent to a Gulag in 2 minutes if he'd not had the good fortune to live in country where we let people come out with any old bollocks.

 

That said I wish him a full recovery, since his idiocies are now part of the national fabric and can certainly provide a good laugh.

Don't want VB and myself to get into a ruck as we did over the 9/11 thread. Would just repeat that TB is a good bet for 2006.

[themaninblack 2,112]

Mao is estimated to have directly or indirectly murdered over 70 million people.

 

Note the word indirectly.

 

Vilebody is no lefty and with such vehemence must be batting for the other side. They've not been responsible for any deaths have they?

 

I'll give Vilebody the time to estimate the deaths caused directly or indeed indirectly by successive US Presidents since WWII

 

In your own time....

[Harvester Of Souls 40]

I like TB with his cheeky pipe and his tea drinking antics... IDGAF who he's supported he's worth a tenner of anyone's money for 2006

[Tuber Mirum 119]

Mao is estimated to have directly or indirectly murdered over 70 million people.

 

Note the word indirectly.

 

Vilebody is no lefty and with such vehemence must be batting for the other side. They've not been responsible for any deaths have they?

 

I'll give Vilebody the time to estimate the deaths caused directly or indeed indirectly by successive US Presidents since WWII

 

In your own time....

Aha! The old "You're just as bad as we are so it's all right for us to be bad because if you criticised us for it, you'd be hypocrites" argument.

 

Wedgie Benn is an odd case. He really believed that if socialism was done properly, it would work, but the Labour party of the time was weak and indicisive, and Benn failed to become leader so we shall never know if he would have done a better or a worse job than the others.

 

He was a bit of a Dogmatist in that he believed in dialogue as opposed to confrontation even if that meant associating with undesirables, but on the other hand who are the goodies and who the baddies? Figures of who killed how many people when are almost always exaggerated depending on who is telling whom about whom.

 

Was it not Churchill who said: "History will be kind to me, because I intend to write it that way"?

 

Something like that anyway.

 

Poor old Wedgie, I hope he lasts a bit longer. He may or may not have been wrong about many things, I'm not qualified to judge that, but he really was a fine, genuine, honest, upstanding human being who would go out of his way to help old ladies over the street and such. Didn't he let a homeless person live in his garden shed for a bit? Perhaps that was someone else.

 

And now, since this is my 1000th Post, a humble attempt at poetry:

 

A splendid young chap name of 'Tater

Not content as a mere moderator.

Said "what I most want,

Is to be a Post-Twunt.

I expect I'll turn into one later"

 

(Boom, Boom)

[Boudicca 702]

Congratulations on your 1000th post, Mr Notapotato!

 

I trust you will receive your promotion soon.

[Star Crossed 33]

A splendid young chap name of 'Tater

Not content as a mere moderator.

Said "what I most want,

Is to be a Post-Twunt.

I expect I'll turn into one later"

Superb. Your effort will, almost certainly, be rewarded with post-twuntity.

[themaninblack 2,112]

Aha! The old "You're just as bad as we are so it's all right for us to be bad because if you criticised us for it, you'd be hypocrites" argument.

 

Quite so, quite so.

 

I'm not going to make a full defence of Benn, he does have his eccentricities. But he believed in socialism, which as a theory you can't knock, but the praticalities were all the more difficult to achieve.

And it was clearly abused. Although Zedong did an awful lot of harm in the pursuit of he genuinely thought was 'socialist'.

[Guest UderLord]

Congratulations on your 1000th post, Mr Notapotato!

 

I trust you will receive your promotion soon.

 

Do we get subtractions from the total for being off topic (like this) ?

 

[Guest iain]

Some more details on Benns condition...he underwent an operation yesterday to fit a heart pacemaker,so obviously he has a heart condition.Benn joked that the battery on the pacemaker lasts 10 years,so it will probably outlive him! I guess he cant be too bad if he can laugh and joke then.

[Guest UderLord]

You need a sense of humor with a name like

Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn

 

No wonder he shortened it !