“... But no. It has all been, and will continue to be, a miserable business. To make sure of that, Tony Benn has written a pompous and pretentious preface: ‘This book, in my considered judgment, is one of the most important political documents to have been published about the Labour Party since the war ...’ Well, I doubt whether it is that, much ...”

“... from the permanent government continued. After Labour had won the election of October 1974, Tony Benn was appointed Secretary of State at the Department of Industry. On his first day in the office he was greeted by his Permanent Secretary, Sir Anthony Part, with the words: ‘I presume, Secretary of State, that you do not intend to implement the ...”

“... the political correspondents in the press had to move quickly from the ‘basic threat’ of Benn to the scarcely less frightening terror of Foot. Not just the Times and the popular Conservative press but the Observer and even the leader page of the Guardian demonstrated, once again, how much political correspondents act as if they were part of politics ...”

“... defeat, she was calling for a show of hands on a defence motion critical of the leadership. Tony Benn, who lost the deputy leadership by a whisker a few years ago, wanted to speak about the Gulf, but wasn’t called. Instead, Conference listened respectfully to formal monologues by Front-Bench speakers, some of whom had watched from the floor ...”

“... word. ‘Feeling profound or vehement’ is reserved for those who wish to change society – for Tony Benn, the ‘Race Relations Industry’, the sexologist, the prison reformer, the militant trade-unionist. Whatever is, is right, unless it’s Left. Humour also is often wary, and frequently contemptuous, of all tender emotions. The quickest way into ...”

“... untenable. Having been shafted by Maria Eagle he was about to be stabbed in the front by Hilary Benn, whose disingenuous speech – Hitler, with the Spanish Civil War thrown in for good measure – was loudly cheered by Tory and hardcore Blairite MPs. (What a pity that the two-hour row between Hilary Benn and his father ...”

“... very much less influential, so far as Labour Prime Ministers are concerned, if the proposals of Mr Benn’s faction prevail. The Civil Service, though it helps the Government to frame and carry out their policies during their time in office, plays no part in drawing up the policies on which the politicians campaign for a further term of office. As things have ...”

“... sounded authentic even when uttered by figures on the patrician Left such as Stafford Cripps and Tony Benn. Hazy on the finer points of Marx, and always unfamiliar with Keynes, Lansbury made the critique of capitalism intelligible: it was the gospel truth. Third, Shepherd reminds us what a rich radical heritage Lansbury’s Party bequeathed to modern ...”

“... Shipbuilders was created by the first Wilson government – the book has a treacherous preface by Tony Benn – out of the wreckage of the old Fairfields yard. In 1971 it was allowed to go ‘bankrupt’ by the Heath Government. The work-force responded with unexpected spirit, occupied the yards as a ‘work-in’, and mobilised much support throughout ...”

“... Tony Crosland’s epoch-making book The Future of Socialism was published in 1956. That Roy Hattersley’s aim is to don the master’s mantle in the late 1980s is evident not only from his book’s subtitle, but also from his brief account of a conversation he had with Tony Crosland a week before the latter’s fatal stroke ...”

“... so, why the proliferation of leftist parties and all those dreadful Trotskyist splinter-groups? Tony Benn and his remaining followers have every right to be hostile to Neil Kinnock’s reconstruction of the Labour Party. But let’s hear no more about a betrayal of a past which never existed. So let us return to the Conservative Party, whose ...”

“... We are concerned here with a Labour prime minister – a non-Oxonian, working-class version of Tony Benn – who is brought down, quietly and peacefully, by the forces of the ‘Establishment’ when he attempts to pull out of the American alliance and threatens the power of the newspaper-owners. This improbable prime minister is most plausibly ...”

“... administration. Who has, in fact, spent more taxpayers’ money on supporting British industry – Tony Benn or Peter Walker, Eric Varley or Sir Keith Joseph? If only a lot more energy had gone into establishing a workable and lasting framework for the relationship between government and industry, and a lot less into the foredoomed attempt to breathe life ...”

“... evidence against them by no fewer than three intending diarists. There they sat, Dick, Barbara and Tony, scribbling away while the nation’s fate was being decided. No wonder there was resentment among the less literary members of the Cabinet. They didn’t think it was fair. It is also a misfortune that all three of those diarists were broadly speaking on ...”

“... John Smith was ‘one of them’. Tony Blair is ‘one of them’. And so are Chris Smith and Jack Straw and half the Shadow Cabinet and many more on the backbenches including Frank Field, that one-man think-tank of the Labour Right. ‘They’ are the Christian socialists, architects of New Labour, ready to provide the movement with the ethical foundations which seem sorely missing ...”