At Paul Foot’s memorial meeting at Hackney town hall in 2004, Tony Benn read the obituary of William Morris written by the editor of The Clarion the week that Morris died in 1896. Tony Benn applied it to Paul Foot. Sadly, it is now time to pay the same tribute to Tony Benn. He inspired us, supported us and gave us reason to hope that we could bring about socialist change. We haven’t done it yet but, if and when we do, it will be due, in no small way, to him. We owe him an enormous debt. Read The Clarion on Morris and remember Tony Benn:

“I cannot help thinking that it does not matter what goes into the Clarion this week, because William Morris is dead. And what socialist will care for any other news this week, beyond that one sad fact? He was our best man, and he is dead …

    “It is true that much of his work still lives, and will live. But we have lost him, and, great as was his work, he himself was greater … he was better than the best. Though his words fell like sword strokes, one always felt that the warrior was stronger than the sword. For Morris was not only a genius, he was a man. Strike at him where you would, he rang true … he was our best man. We cannot spare him; we cannot replace him. In all England there lives no braver, kinder, honester, cleverer, heartier man than William Morris. He is dead, and we cannot help feeling for a while that nothing else matters.”

And here’s a couple of quotes from the man himself:

On the poll tax: “The last time they tried to impose the poll tax was 1381 – and protesters cut the chancellor’s head off and stuck it on a pole on Westminster Bridge. So Mr Major [John Major was Chancellor of the Exchequer] had better watch out, because you never know what’s going to happen!”

On a demonstration against Thatcher’s policies (and here he produces one of his famous lists – he always had a list!): “It was a great demonstration. People came from all over the region – women and men, young and old, employed and unemployed, skilled and unskilled, black and white, straight and gay – all protesting against Mrs Thatcher’s plans for the region – and that’s our hope. Frankly.”

On how the media are not all-powerful (I can’t remember which election he’s talking about here): Just before the election, the Sun newspaper got all the information they could find on me and sent it to a psychiatrist in America. When the result came back, they put it on the front page on the morning of the election: ‘BENN IS STARK STARING BONKERS, SAYS PSYCHIATRIST’.  When the result of the election was announced, I found I’d increased my majority! So you see, they aren’t all-powerful, and they can’t tell us what to think.”

But they do try, and governments do try, to control us and keep us passive. This is from an interview in the last couple of years: “The way they control us is to frighten us all the time, and divide us and demoralise us. If you want to win you mustn’t be frightened, you mustn’t be divided, you mustn’t be demoralised and you mustn’t be cynical. And once people discover that, then it’s astonishing what can be achieved.”

RIP Tony Benn