Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now

by Benn Tony (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $3.25

  Tony Benn was born in a house on the Embankment which - ironically - later became the site of the Millbank Tower, centre of Labour spin. Next door lived Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and politics were Tony's life-blood from the very beginning (his father was a Cabinet minister). This warm, affectionate, brilliantly funny account reveals how he developed his ideas and ideals from the extraordinary late-Victorian/Edwardian world of his parents, and how his conviction that the world should be changed has its origins in early experiences.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.25

  Born into a family with a strong, radical dissenting tradition in which enterprise and public service were combined, Tony Benn was taught to believe that the greatest sin in life was to waste time and money. Life in his Victorian-Edwardian family home in Westminster was characterised by austerity, the last vestiges of domestic service, the profound influence of his mother, a dedicated Christian and feminist, and his colourful and courageous father, elected as a Liberal MP in 1906 and later serving in Labour Cabinets under Ramsay MacDonald and Clem Atlee. Benn followed in his father's footsteps, becoming one of the most famous and respected figures in modern British politics. Dare to be a Daniel feelingly recalls Tony Benn's years as one of three brothers experiencing life in the nursery, the agonies of adolescence and of school, where boys were taught to 'keep their minds clean' and the shadow of fascism and the Second World War with its disruption and family loss. This moving memoir also describes his emergence from World War Two as a keen socialist about to embark upon marriage and an unknown political future. The book ends with some of Tony Benn's reflections on many of the most important and controversial issues of our time.