Benn, Tony

Autor: Benn, Tony
Rok: 1925-2014

Biogr./Hist. údaje: Britský politik.
Zdroj: Autoritní databáze Národní knihovny ČR

Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), originally known as Anthony Wedgwood Benn or Wedgwood Benn (and colloquially as Wedgie Benn), but later as Tony Benn, was a British politician who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 47 years between 1950 and 2001 and a Cabinet minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was situated on the party's hard left, ideologically identifying as a democratic socialist.Benn inherited a hereditary peerage on his father's death (as 2nd Viscount Stansgate), preventing him continuing as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons, and then campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. In the Labour Government of 1964–70 he served first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as a "technocratic" Minister of Technology.In 1971–72, when the Labour Party was in Opposition, he was Chairman of the Labour Party. In the Labour Government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet, initially as Secretary of State for Industry, before being made Secretary of State for Energy, retaining his post when James Callaghan replaced Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in Opposition in the 1980s, he was a prominent figure on its left wing and the term "Bennite" came to be used for someone with radical left-wing politics.Benn was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office." After leaving Parliament, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 until his death in 2014.