Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now
By Tony Benn
Hutchinson, 2004
278 pages
REVIEW BY ALEX MILLER
Tony Benn is rightfully one of the most well-respected figures in the history of the British Labour Party during the second half of the 20th century. Demonised by the corporate media, Benn has a sense of justice and a true passion for socialism that most Labour politicians so obviously lack. This sense and passion shine from the pages of this book , which is in part ("then") an autobiography of Benn's childhood and youth, and in part ("now") a series of essays and speeches on the concerns that dominated Benn's parliamentary career: peace, justice, democracy, and socialism.
Benn retired from the British parliament in 2001, after serving as an MP for 50 years. He tells how his childhood was one "in which my family was rooted in dissenting non-conformity, radicalism, and commercially successful Victorian enterprise". The "dissenting non-conformity" is that of Congregationalism, in which his father had been brought up as a child and which his mother adopted after rejecting the Church of England. Benn clearly loves the hymns and imagery that he was exposed to in his childhood.
Indeed, the book's title comes from a Salvation Army hymn that he learned from his father: "Dare to be a Daniel/Dare to Stand Alone!/Dare to have a purpose firm!/Dare to make it known."
Benn recounts how, as his life has gone on, he has moved further and further away from his mother's deep Christian convictions, although he still has a very high regard for them: "I have the deepest respect for those who believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection and the saints, but they do not help me to understand the world, nor do they point to my duty as to how one should live."
Partly under the influence of his wife Caroline, Benn evolved in the direction of humanism, "cherishing the rituals of the Church, but unable to subscribe to the Creed, while embracing the moral teachings of the Bible, believing them best realised in collective political and social action".
Benn had an interesting and happy childhood. His grandfather and father were both MPs, and as a boy Benn had the chance to meet Ghandi, Oswald Moseley, Ramsey MacDonald, David Lloyd George and Clement Atlee. His accounts of his wartime service, his relationships with his parents, his brothers (one of whom, Michael, died in action during World War II), and his wife Caroline (who died in 2000), are both moving, engaging, and — in a way that I don't quite understand — comforting.
The essays and speeches in the second half of the book deserve an extended treatment that's not possible here. Benn does a great job of spelling out the limitations of any attempt to initiate wide-ranging and lasting social change by parliamentary reform and legislation. As an ex-cabinet minister he illustrates how real power in Britain is not in the hands of the prime minister or the cabinet, let alone the House of Commons, but in the hands of unelected civil service mandarins and the secret services, MI5 and MI6: "Ministers are often kept in the dark. When I was in the cabinet, I once said I wished we had freedom of information for cabinet ministers ... I should be very surprised if the Home Secretary knows much about what the security services are doing. If he does, he is the first Home Secretary ever to do so."
Benn reveals that in advance of a general election, civil servants in government departments prepare two different dossiers for presentation to the incoming minister. Which dossier is actually presented depends on which party — Labour or Conservative — wins the election. Benn describes the deal the civil service offers an incoming minister as follows: "Minister, if you do what we want you to do, we will help you to pretend you are doing what you said you would do."
Given this, it is surprising that Benn rejects out of hand any attempt to initiate radical social change other than via grassroots pressure on the parliamentary Labour Party. Direct action is definitely a no-no. Discussing how power has been transferred surreptitiously from Westminster to the European Union, Benn writes: "It could explain the falling turnout at elections, which in itself could undermine the democratic legitimacy of future governments and encourage people to believe that direct action — or even riot — may turn out to be the best way of securing political objectives."
Indeed, "revolution" and "riot" seem to be almost synonymous in Benn's vocabulary. Commenting again on the encroachment by the EU on Westminster's patch, he writes, "Not only is this a direct denial of democratic rights, but it removes the power of governments to discourage revolution or riot, on the grounds that a democratic solution is possible". This is puzzling. Riots tend to be spontaneous, disorganised, lacking in clear aims, and limited to a small section of the populace. But surely history gives us at least some examples of revolutions that have been planned, highly organised, clear in their aims, and that have enjoyed the support of the great mass of the people? So why counterpose revolution and democracy, especially when one is aware of the limitations of the parliamentary variant of the latter?
Given the wealth of evidence that Benn adduces against the existence of the parliamentary road to socialism, it is hard to make sense of the claim that "politically conscious trade unionism operating within a party with socialist roots [is] capable in a [parliamentary] democracy of changing the balance of power permanently and peacefully". Of course, that's not to say that anyone has yet come up with a winning alternative. But surely a winning alternative is what we should be looking for, rather than just another version of the Labour Party with more conscientious parliamentarians?
Despite the limitations of the second half of the book, it is an enjoyable and informative read by a politician with genuine integrity. Overall, it is a timely reminder that it was once possible to sit in a Labour cabinet and yet be decent, honest, and genuinely committed to the cause of the common good.
From Green Left Weekly, July 6, 2005.
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