On the occasion of his passing, we select some of Tony Benn’s (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014) most memorable influences and lessons
 
“My mother said to me once, she said ‘all decisions including political decisions are basically moral – is it right or wrong? And when a new issue comes up you have to ask yourself the basic question: if we do this, will it be right or will it be wrong? And that helps you to come to terms with the real basis of decision-making.’ And I think that comment made a lot of sense.”
In an interview with the BBC, 24 October 2013
“When my mother married, she went to Kings’ College and studied the Old Testament. She was made a fellow of the Hebrew University at the age of 85. Her theological library is enormous. I was brought up on Bible stories – I absorbed the Christian ethic by a form of osmosis. It was a real influence in my life.”
In an interview with The Catholic Herald, 1989
“My great-grandfather was a congregational minister and my mother was a Bible scholar, and I was brought up on the Bible – that the story of the Bible was conflict between the kings who had power and the prophets who preached righteousness. And I was taught to believe in the prophets, which got me into a lot of trouble. And my dad said to me when I was young, ‘Dare to be a Daniel. Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm. Dare to let it (be) known.’”
In an interview with Counterpunch, 19 December 2005
“Well I came across Marx rather late in life actually, and when I read him, two things: first of all I realised that he’d come to the conclusion about capitalism which I’d come to much later, and I was a bit angry he’d thought of it first; and secondly, I see Marx who was an old Jew, as the last of the Old Testament Prophets, this old bearded man working in the British Library, studying capitalism, that’s what ‘Das Kapital’ was about, it was an explanation of British capitalism. And I thought to myself, ‘Well anyone could write a book like that, but what infuses, what comes out of his writing, is the passionate hostility to the injustice of capitalism. He was a Prophet, and so I put him in that category as an Old Testament Prophet.”
In an interview with John Cleary, 23 February 2003
“I was in London in the Blitz in 1940… every morning I saw the Docklands burning, 500 people were killed in Westminster by a landmine, it was terrifying! Aren’t Arabs terrified? Aren’t Iraqis terrified? Don’t Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Doesn’t bombings strengthen their determination? What fools we are to live in a generation for which war is a computer game for our children, and just an interesting little Channel 4 news item.”
House of Commons, 1998
“Five hundred people were killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: ‘We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.’ That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it’s a war crime that’s been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.”
BBC’s Question Time, 22 March 2007
“Change from below, the formulation of demands from the populace to end unacceptable injustice, supported by direct action, has played a far larger part in shaping British democracy than most constitutional lawyers, political commentators, historians or statesmen have ever cared to admit. Direct action in a democratic society is fundamentally an educational exercise.”

In New Politics, 1970
“If one meets a powerful person – Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates – ask them five questions: ‘What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?’ If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.”
Speech to the House of Commons, 22 March 2001

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