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I’m suspicious of my working class shoulder chip. I see injustice in the world but what have I done to allieviate it? Could my objections against private health and education be down to that really I’m envious of not flying special class and being protected from the also-rans by the curtain. The fact that I really hate golf could be not so much because I regard it as the apartheid of all sports but because I’m shit at it! If I had been born into privilege, wouldn’t I be like all the other ‘haves’ and ‘winners’ and look after my interests and seek to profit from them.
Well that belief that it would hard to resist nepotism, entitlement, the chance of a place at the high table is not true for one very special man. Anthony Neil Wedgwood “Tony” Benn, formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, renounced his hereditary peerage to become a British Labour Party politician and a Member of Parliament (MP) for 50 years.
It’s hard to imagine how a man educated at Westminister School and born an aristocrat could devote his entire life to fighting for democracy and the rights of the common man.Tony Benn is simply a man for all seasons.Here are his values, listen and decide for yourself.
“My mother was a very religious woman who used to read the bible every night. And she said something to me that I’ve never forgotten. She said the bible is the story of the conflict between the kings who had power and the prophets who preached righteousness. And she taught me to support the prophets against the kings and the older I get, the more true I believe that to be. And I find wherever I go, that same prophetic teaching is to be found in all religions so I don’t feel in any way divided from jews or muslims or buddhists. I find that if you explore the roots of your faith, you have a common interest and belief and that is the basis for the future of the human race.”
I’ve noticed this scaremongering all my life, usually done by the tory press. If you let Labour in, all our best minds will leave the country and the masses will lose the ‘trickle-down’ benefit of their leadership. There are reds under the beds, those ‘pinko’ teachers in Camden are promoting homosexuality by reading ‘I’ve got two dads’ and there are a million Bulgarians and Romanians heading our way to steal our jobs and houses. My wife and I decided very early on in parenthood that we would not threaten the ‘bogeyman’ on our two sons. If something is wrong, you don’t do it because it is wrong and not because of the consequences.
With the next clip in mind, I’d like to persuade anybody connected with education to make Tony Benn the patron saint of teachers! If the Roman Catholic Church can do it, why can’t we?
“When people talk about politics, they always talk about powerful people and weak people, successful people and unsuccessful people, rich people and poor people. The real question is: Is it right or is it wrong? Now you can argue about what’s right and wrong, but that’s the question you should ask.” – ” My experience of progress is very simple. If you start with a sensible idea like votes for women, in the beginning they ignore you, then they attack you, then they imprison you, then you win and you can’t find anyone at the top who doesn’t claim to have thought of it in the first place.”
I’m fustrated by the well-held view that all you have to do is send your child to a certain school or have the best teacher and genius will prevail. It is a fact that only 20% is down to the school! In my experience, it is the child that succeeds or not and for a teacher to take credit or fault for that, rather masks the real truth. Our skill as teachers is to enable, to inspire, to encourage because we are pseudo parents. Anybody who is, shall we say, conservative-minded, who is career-oriented and looking primarily to promote themselves should, in my opinion, be in another job.
As Bill Cunningham, street fashion photographer for The New York Times, says, “If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do. That’s the key to the whole thing.” Whereas with the rest, it’s give me a bonus, an increment or a reward and I’ll believe in anything you want, peddle anything you want and trample over anybody you want. Give me the key to the executive washroom or the title of assistant manager (No Gareth! – You’re an assistant to the manager) and I immediately seem to suffer from amnesia and acute hyprocrisy to my own previous working habits.
Still fighting injustice at 88, no matter where it presents itself. You can’t muzzle the truth, so don’t bother trying!
Every UKIP, Defence League sympathesiser, reader of the Daily Mail should be made to watch this clip and realise how rational, educated and essentially good people value and tolerate the differences between us all.
Finally, after reading and listening to the clips above, is this as funny as it was intended to be? Here we have the prophet and the king. One baron looking to profit from this encounter, puns intended, and one looking to encourage and enlighten. I’m a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen but I doubt the wisdom of treating subjects with satire that do not deserve lampooning. This after all, does not serve the public good like highlighting the homophobia of redneck cage-fighting fans or heroically ridiculing the fanatical singing of the ‘star-bangled banner.’
What this does bring home is a lesson in extremely generous tolerance and acceptance for people whose views are diametrically opposite to your own.
A Monkey in Manhattan 