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Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
Resonant reflections of a great man of the left
John Moore reviews The Best of Benn, edited by Ruth Winstone (Hutchinson, £20)
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
An immersive, participatory display by a queer Australian Aboriginal performer, and a rebellious unravelling of traditional Scottish dance
This selection of writings and speeches by Tony Benn, skimming the surface of his archives, reveals his eloquent yet plain-speaking style. It’s devoid of personal attacks on his opponents — Benn was only concerned with the issues.
Benn was a “run-of-the-mill Labour MP,” not a radical socialist, when he entered Parliament in 1950. Nevertheless, he resigned from his first government post because he would not support the first-use of nuclear weapons by Britain.
He became postmaster general and then minister of technology in Harold Wilson’s government but moved steadily to the left in the 1960s. He was strongly influenced by the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders sit-in, which he saw as a lesson in industrial democracy as well as an assertion of the right to work.
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