Tony Benn answers our questions

Off the Shelf, Sheffield’s Festival of Reading and Writing is in full swing and as promised I caught up with festival highlight and veteran politican, Tony Benn. Here are some interesting facts I’ve found out about him – he met Ghandi when he was six, he renounced his inherited title, 2nd Viscount Stansgate and he was Labour’s second longest-serving MP. I put some of your questions and some of my own to him. Here’s what he had to say:

Steven: In your famous interview with Ali G you were motivated to do so to get young people to engage with politics. You were spoofed at the time but in hindsight do you think you achieved the original objective?
Tony: When I met this young man he was a bit strange but I treated him seriously and then he asked me some ludicrous questions. He said, ‘People only go on strike to chill out and bitches only get pregnant to get benefit.’ I tried to deal with all these questions seriously and when I discovered afterwards it was a hoax, I was a bit angry. Then I saw the programme and I realised it was a very clever programme and Ali G is a clever man. Then he rang me up later and asked me if I’d appear in his film, Ali G Goes to Parliament. I said, ‘No you’re my main man but I can’t manage it.’

I’ve seen Borat, some of the other programmes he’s done. He asked a General, ‘Whose side did you fight in, in the war? The General said, ‘The British side,’ then Alig G said, ‘Did you ever think of changing sides?’ He asked a Conservative MP whether Jamaica was in the European Union and when the MP said no, he said, ‘Is that rasicsm, man?’ I think he’s a very skilled comedian.

Lucy: What kind of arts and culture are you into?
Tony: I tour with Sheffield Professor and folk singer, Roy Bailey. We do a show called Writings on the Wall. I read radical statements from the peasants revolt onwards and he sings songs about them. It’s very interesting because people discover that everything they’re thinking has been thought by earlier generations. It’s interesting to watch people as they rediscover their own heritage.

Lucy: What’s your position on the coalition’s approach to dealing with the country’s financial deficit?
Tony: There are problems where you spend more than you can afford, on the other hand I think the government is deliberately using that to do things they want to do anyway, to cutback on public services, to privatise the health service, to cut benefits and I think it’s leading already to a huge resistance, of a kind I haven’t seen for many years and I think that resistance is going to be factor in the next few months.

If you’re going to make cuts and maybe cuts have to be made, I wouldn’t cut benefits, I would cut nuclear weapons. I wouldn’t cut University expenditure, I would stop the war in Afghanistan. I think when you have a situation like this, there are choices. You could increase income tax on the wealthiest people who are paid these obscene bonuses. If you did that, money would be raised which would help to meet the need.

Jay: What would your response be to those who feel Arthur Scargill led the miners to defeat in the 1980s? Was there more that the Labour Party could have done – if so, what?

Tony: I think the miner’s strike was planned by Mrs. Thatcher. She planned it for the spring when the coal stocks were higher and the demand was lower. It wasn’t Arthur Scargill that started the strike at all, but the miner’s conference had for years passed a resolution saying that if there was an attack upon the pits as a whole, we should take action and I think Arthur played a very important part. At the end of the miner’s strike the miners re-elected Arthur Scargill and the Tory Party threw out Mrs Thatcher, so that tells you something.

Rupert: You stood for Deputy instead of Leader of the Labour Party in 1981 and then were not an MP when Kinnock got in. Do you regret not fighting harder to become PM? After all we ended up with Blair.
Tony: I think the one thing I’ve learnt in the course of my life is that just being negative doesn’t get you very far. I took the view that when there was an election it gave the people a choice as to what policy to follow. I put forward my own views and the party didn’t accept them. As far as I was concerned that settled the matter.

As for Blair, people shouted Thatcher! Out! Out! Out! And we got Blair! In! In! In! He really was a Thatcherite. He followed Mrs Thatcher’s policies because he thought they were the only way to win an election and then he went along with President George W. Bush about the war. I think the whole Blair period was a great mistake.

Sarah and Lorraine: You’re a grandfather to Emily, but do people ever ask if you would be their fantasy grandfather? And would you be mine?
Tony: I’ve written a book called To My Grandchildren which is an appeal to young people generally. I think family relations are very, very important, so I’m honoured that anyone should think that.

You can hear more from Tony Benn or even ask him your own questions directly, tonight Thursday 14 October at The Octagon, The University of Sheffield.

Tickets: £12/ £10

Arena Ticket Shop Tel: 0114 2565567/ University of Sheffield Students’ Union Tel: 0114 2228777