Guest post from Louise Mensch: "Tony Benn represented something truly valuable in the world"

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

I was so sad to hear - via Mumsnet in fact - of the death of Tony Benn, a man I never actually met. I did once tell his son Hillary, a Labour MP, how much I admired his father - but that was a close as I got.

Tony Benn represented something truly valuable in the world. He acted on what he believed. For his love of socialism, he was prepared to walk away from a peerage, and even from the nobility of his family name. No longer Viscount Stansgate, he wouldn't even allow people to call him Anthony Wedgewood-Benn - he was to be "Tony Benn". And so he remained, until he died.

There was that rumpled, brilliant look about the man that is so endearing to our clever, messy nation. Like JRR Tolkien, whom he resembled, he loved to smoke a pipe; a particularly English vice. He drank tea, and was well-read. He seems never to have regretted walking away from "my Lord" and the bowing and scraping of the era.

Benn also possessed, as well as conviction, a great generosity of spirit. His respect and affection for Margaret Thatcher showed him to be a man who understood that political opposition does not have to, and should not, equal enmity (more Labour MPs wrote me kind notes after I resigned my seat than Conservative ones, by the way). Benn said of Thatcher "she was a signpost, not a weathervane". That was why he respected her; and it is why I respected him.

He had convictions; he lived those convictions. He was true to himself, bright, and kind. He was raised by a feminist mother, and it showed, in the best possible way. Labourlist drew my attention to his generous piece on Thatcher which told this story:

"I remember her at the funeral of MP Eric Heffer. I was asked to make a speech and as I was waiting, there was someone behind me coughing. It was Mrs Thatcher, and at the end I thanked her for coming and she burst into tears. She had come out of respect for someone whose opinions she disagreed with."

I believe that there are a great many MPs and commentators who did not share any of Benn's beliefs, but who realise today that in him, we have lost a national treasure; a genuine servant of the people, who did not need to be a nobleman, to be a noble man. May many of us involved in politics on all sides learn from his lessons of authenticity, humility, generosity, and kindness.

Impossible for us to prove that a Labour ex-politician similar to Mensch would not have been greeted with a similar level of concern. But Widdecombe's name has been mentioned a number of times as an example of someone who could have written with something closer to the gravitas that Benn deserves.

MN's explanation for their decision to ask Mensch to write a guest blog piece is weak and adds weight to the theory they did it to generate page hits from the controversy. I sincerely hope MN would not do something so calculating over the death of a great man. I think Mensch acted with the best of intentions in writing her piece and most of the concern displayed on this thread has been about MN, not Mensch. Mensch has put considerably more effort into defending herself than MN has, despite [apparently] being on hols.

All in all, very disappointing.

Apart from LauraBridges, I don't think a single poster has had a good word to say about Louise's post.

"Tony Benn represented something truly valuable in the world. He acted on what he believed. For his love of socialism, he was prepared to walk away from a peerage, and even from the nobility of his family name."

"There was that rumpled, brilliant look about the man that is so endearing to our clever, messy nation."

‘He had convictions; he lived those convictions. He was true to himself, bright, and kind. He was raised by a feminist mother, and it showed, in the best possible way.’

Benn also possessed, as well as conviction, a great generosity of spirit.

I believe that there are a great many MPs and commentators who did not share any of Benn's beliefs, but who realise today that in him, we have lost a national treasure; a genuine servant of the people, who did not need to be a nobleman, to be a noble man. May many of us involved in politics on all sides learn from his lessons of authenticity, humility, generosity, and kindness."

Not a good word was said about any of it. Just attempting to say that it was all about Louise, or about Thatcher or about tea and that it was "shoddy" and "lightweight".

If any former Labour MP had written that, it would not have received the same nearly unanimous hostile response.

I think the fact that it recieved such a bitter reponse with accusations of "the nerve" of Louise is partly to do with the fact that she was a Tory and partly to do with envy.

Oh cripes. Well, I'm off to put my very large black and brown guinea pig Peggy out in her run for the first time this year. I'll explain it all to her and I'm quite certain she'll be able to understand.

Envy of what, exactly?

Well it is lightweight! And it would have been much better if she had actually known him.

No doubt you have many A levels and degrees too, Claig.

'Envy of what, exactly?'

Her success. Which is why we have all the "lightweight", "geisha" etc etc

Er, no. I'm not envious of her success. Why would I be?

'No doubt you have many A levels and degrees too, Claig.'

I have got 3 A levels and 2 degrees, and I don't envy anyone. I admire people who stand up for what they believe, who are kind, generous of spirit and bear no ill-will. Even though, I didn't agre with Tony Benn on many things, I admire the fact that he did not abandon his principles for advancement. I admire honest, integrity and authenticity because they are values that are all too rare in public life. I also admire politeness and respect because they are becoming increasingly rare too in our coarsened society.

Her success? As an author of lightweight literature, an MP who let down her constituents and a prolific user of twitter. You've got us there Claig - we all burn for that sort of success.

It's not envy you're reading. It's contempt.

'It's not envy you're reading. It's contempt.'

OK, I guess I was being too charitable with envy. You say it is contempt.

I hope she keeps off this thread, poor thing. It is never wise to get personal or respond. I have the biggest criticism of her which can hit where it hurts which is that of the big let down to the British public. I want us in 10 years to be talking about death of leading trade unionist Mrs Crow, Mrs Benn and Mr Mensch who left is seat in Parliament to follow his spouse across the globe and keep house. The reason we aren't talking about that is that those spouses follow dangerous gender stereotypes we need to stamp out.

But yes I thought her post was fine as a blog. If she wants to keep some income sources and the like it is worth staying in the public domain in the UK by writing about things. It was not a bad call.

I think she is right to point out that she has achieved more than most of her detractors have.

Sorry, just catching up. claig, I understand you feel some need to defend Mensch, but could you at least acknowledge that you, and she, know sweet FA about the 'achievements' of any of the people posting on this thread.

Her achievements are (or should be) irrelevant.

That is what is most offensive.

This thread should be about Tony Benn. If she had a shred of integrity or any of the other qualities you identify, claig, she wouldn't be using it as a place to boast.

I deliberately haven't read what Mensch said in her defence as it is always a bit difficult when things have to descend to that.

If the aim was some publicity then that worked. For mumsnet you could even have a newspaper article - mumsnetters turn on Mensch so that could be good publicity for the site too. Win win all round really and a bit of fun for the rest of us. Did they get a left winger to write about Lady Thatcher (my heroine by the way) when she died?

I won't go into my own "achievements".

Oh my bloody fuck.

So, it's real? Up there? That woman coming and calling us muppets and not knowing how to insert commas into sentences is really her?

I've entered a parallel universe. It's a crack in time. It's a timey wimey distortion of reality surely?

Please God, let HIGNFY be on air (I'm not in the UK either) because this would have Hislop pissing his prissy little pants.

No-one, I think, (

Claig, I think your constantly trying to turn this into a party political argument is diminishing it; this is not about political beliefs, it is about wanting an obituary to a remarkable human being to be written from personal experience and not from what can be gleaned from Wikipedia. I am not left wing either but I can see the negatives in asking Louise to do this. I would say I was surprised that she didn't recognise the inappropriateness and decline but any publicity is good publicity eh? It's all grist to the mill nowadays.

I barely know who Louise is, my awareness is limited to a few tv appearances, but that would not worry me if she had known TB personally. What does concern me is that MN seem to have approached this almost as a marketing exercise (although I can say I'd have been more appalled if we had got the truly vacuous Russell Brand in an effort to attract more hits!)

There is real irony in the fact that the overwhelming criticism of modern politicians, that they have no convictions but attempt to mould themselves and their beliefs to what the polls tell them the public want is posted on a site now producing a piece of fluff instead of the expected well thought tribute in an effort to produce what they think the "wider" public might want.

I think you should read what she said in her defence Laura.

The scales might fall from your eyes a bit.

And don't worry, I'm sure your own achievements could blow the socks off Mrs Mensch's.

'I understand you feel some need to defend Mensch'

I defend anybody who writes a tribute to a dead person and is in my opinion unfairly attacked for it. Those are just my values, and I think they would probably have been Tony Benn's values too. I think MNHQ should do the same.

'could you at least acknowledge that you, and she, know sweet FA about the 'achievements' of any of the people posting on this thread'

I don't care about people's achievements. I don't care if someone is like Tony Blair, ex-leader of the Labour Party, or like David Miliband, in charge of a charity. That is not what I admire. I admire honesty, integrity, authenticity and generosity of spirit - all things which Tony Benn had in spades. I am not denying that there are high achievers on this thread, but I value other qualities more highly.

LRD, she is not boasting. I think she is angry that people have slagged her off as some sort of "lightweight" who has got "a nerve" to have an opinion about Tony Benn and express it when she was invited to by MNHQ.

I am left wing. However, I don't have an issue at all with a right wing politician coming onto MN and writing an obituary of Tony Benn (as long as it was accurate and respectful, of course.)

But I do object to someone like Ms Mensch being asked to do it. She didn't even know the man and she isn't a current politician. She's just a Twitter user with access to the media.

BIWI that point has been sorely missed by quite a few I'm afraid in favour of bun throwing and attention seeking.

claig, can I ask - if you had been asked to write a tribute to someone you had never actually known, never had any dealings with beyond the fact that you both worked, at one point in your lives, in the same profession, would you have done it?

Or would you have said, thanks for the offer, but I think there's probably someone out there better suited to the job than me?

She is not only boasting. She is attacking and name calling.

Whilst her "achievements" in politics (were there any of note) were fleeting and forgettable, and her airport novel stuff is unlikely to ever hit the Booker list, she will at least have one unique accolade to tweet about....I don't think we've ever actually had a "sleb" or "guest writer" be openly obnoxious to MNers before have we?

I mean, Nick Clegg (and others too many to mention) have been given incredibly short shrift on here, and been subjected to far more critical opinions than she has, but I don't recall any of them resorting to basically shrieking "but don't you know who I am? I've got an -ology! I won a prize!" and then descending into a bit of a humiliating name-calling session....

'if you had been asked to write a tribute to someone you had never actually known, never had any dealings with beyond the fact that you both worked, at one point in your lives, in the same profession, would you have done it?'

Yes. just as I wrote about Bob Crow and Tony Benn on threads on here. I didn't know them, but I still have an opinion on them.

In a sense, the whole country knew Tony Benn because he was a national figure who spanned decades in public life. He became a 'national treasure'. So everybody has an opinion about him.

MNHQ emailed Louise in New York and invited her to write something. She was glad to do so because she respected and admired him greatly. She didn't hide the fact that she didn't know him personally, she mentioned that in her first line. Her opinion is as valid as anyone else's and since MNHQ emailed her to ask her to contribute, how and why should she decline?

Oh, and she's tweeting about giving us 'both barrels' ...