Anthony "Tony" Neil Wedgwood Benn (born 3 April 1925), formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, is a British Labour politician, and the current President of the Stop the War Coalition.
With his successful campaign to renounce his inherited title, a landmark case in British politics, Benn was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963. Later, in the Labour Government of 1964-1970 under Harold Wilson, he served first as Postmaster General, where ...
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Anthony "Tony" Neil Wedgwood Benn (born 3 April 1925), formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, is a British Labour politician, and the current President of the Stop the War Coalition.
With his successful campaign to renounce his inherited title, a landmark case in British politics, Benn was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963. Later, in the Labour Government of 1964-1970 under Harold Wilson, he served first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the BT Tower, and later as a notably 'technocratic' Minister of Technology. In the Labour Government of 1974-1979, he initially served 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. During the Labour Party's time in opposition during the 1980s, he was seen as the party's prominent figure on the Left, and the term "Bennite" (a term never actually used by Benn himself) has come to be used in Britain for...
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