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.

I'm a politician, apparently

Don't think she is googling her own name tbf - she said she had Google Alerts set up which means Google will let her know when she gets mentioned. I'd guess that's pretty standard, I bet MN use it.

I liked Nadine Dorries' piece better (and I never thought I'd say that!)

Yes, I liked Nadine Dorries' piece as well. I rather liked The Daily Mash's take as well.

MN asked me to write a tribute. That's it. You're not listening, which is your privilege, but I'm still going to correct you all the same. The question was "would you write a tribute to Tony Benn." The answer was "yes I'd love to." The question was not, funnily enough, "Hey Louise, do you consider yourself worthy of being the official tribute-writer to Tony Benn versus any major Labour MP or a close friend or relative of his."

At the risk of repetition, I think there is some value when a public figure dies in hearing how they inspired people they never met. In a way, that's one definition of public impact vs private impact. Every death saddens family hearts, friends' hearts. Not everybody reaches beyond that. Benn's good nature and integrity made him attractive and inspirational to strangers too.

As for boasting, I am walking the walk. I was accused by posters on this thread of being stupid. I am not. My academic record proves it. Of being a geisha. I am not. That's sexist. It shames the speaker, not the target. Of having achieved nothing. Again, the anonymous poster here who is trying to belittle my career because I write popular and not literary fiction is barking up the wrong tree. I wrote what I enjoy reading, have sold millions of them and they're pretty good. As popular fiction. Which is what I am trying to write.

If you think you can do better, give it a go. Writing something that entertains readers is not as easy as you think.

Being in this thread is sort of active feminism for me. All too often women just shut up and sit back when called unwarranted names. It's fine to say you didn't enjoy the piece. But not fine to call an educated woman vacuous, a married woman a geisha, or say that a long-established and successful career is meaningless because you don't enjoy the kind of books I do.

Women need to push back occasionally, as well as lean in. I'm posting under my real name and am happy to stand on my record; you are posting anonymously and attacking another woman's career and academic achievements without being willing to put your own up for comparison, which is gutless of you, though not unexpected.
Speaking up now is part of that general push back by conservative women who are simply not willing to allow the left to try and claim feminism as their province. This thread has been a huge failure for them in that respect; although my tribute itself was well-received other than by (most of) the BTL commenters here.

And yes for whoever was speculating, I have a google alert on my name.

I'm utterly disinterested in your qualifications in general.
I personally feel you were unqualified to write this piece.
Nothing to do with a levels and degrees.

louise, I like chicklit too. I promise, that's not the reason I found your obit crass and offensive.

And for the record, as far as I can see, the first person to use the word 'stupid' on this thread was you, wasn't it?

Education does not prevent some people from being vacuous, nor some pieces of their writing from being vacuous. It's understandable you might not like that characterisation, but surely, you are aware people are not forced at gunpoint to agree with you?

It's actually perfectly fine to suggest you find someone with a degree 'vacuous'. It's less fine to suggest any woman is a 'geisha' unless she's actually, y'know, a geisha. It is a sexist stereotype, as well as a dodgy bit of Orientalism. It wouldn't be ok if you weren't married either, as you should know - it being feminism 101.

Someone on this thread did put up her academic credentials. Someone else commented (rightly) that she felt intimidated by mention of credentials. Do you not see that it's inappropriate to turn this into a pissing contest, when you were supposed to be writing about someone who has just died?

@BIWI

But claig, the fact remains that Ms Mensch was the first 'go to' politician by MNHQ. And that's the issue. Of all the politicians that MN have interacted with/worked with/spoken with over the years, why this one?

This has been raised a few times and is worth addressing I think. The key point here is that Louise Mensch is part of our bloggers' network (Shirley Williams etc isn't). We're not a newspaper, we don't have notables and writers up our sleeve to pen things at the drop of the hat - we do tend to look to our own bloggers if there's a topic of interest with think might make a good guest post. Nor do we have that many politicians or ex-politicians in our network. Plus, we knew that Louise respected Tony Benn, as she'd tweeted several tributes when he was very ill.

As KateMumsnet said earlier, we hoped a tribute from the other side of the political divide would help to show what an unusual politician Tony Benn was - as many have written this weekend, perhaps one of the last of a dying breed.

For all those reasons I don't actually think it was such an odd a thought. (And I happen to know that the BBC Newsnight team clocked Louise's post and asked Ms Mensch onto their show that night to be part of the Tony Benn discussion/tribute - she turned them down as it happens and I think they had Tim Montgomerie instead).

So it was good of her, in my view to write a post so quickly and for no dosh, and it's a shame that she's drawn such personal flak that she felt compelled to defend herself, when really if you disagree with the choice of writer, you should most definitely be shouting at us, not Louise Mensch. (As, indeed, many of you are [wry smile]).

Ok.
Justine...you fucked up.
Take the thread down.
That clear enough?

I have reported this thread twice and have no response
((shrugs))

Usual...I have a BSc bronze swimming certificate

Do brownie badges count?

Ah. You see, I got slung out of brownies.
I don't seem to cope well in paramilitary organisations :)

People were shouting at you HQ. They wouldn't have been shouting at LM had she not come on being a bit funny about her qualifications.

Several people genuinely thought she was trolling because it all seemed so very strange at that point.

justine, I can understand you got someone known to you, rather than looking further afield. And even though I do think it was a big mistake, it's your site and it's not hard to see why it happened.

I don't think anyone is holding you responsible for what Ms Mensch said subsequently. It wouldn't be fair to expect you to take the flak for that.

All the bragging...it's just all rather vulgar

I love the muppets.
I see no problem with being compared to one.
(My first crush was animal the drummer from the muppets band. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions wrt my taste in men/puppets)

@Badvoc

Ok. Justine...you fucked up. Take the thread down. That clear enough?

Very clear, Badvoc! And believe me, I'd love to just hit the big red delete button, but am always a bit squeamish of deleting folks' words when they've gone to the trouble of writing them. And especially squeamish of deleting criticism of MNHQ.

oy hands off animal he's mine all mine

@PeggyTheGuineaPig

People were shouting at you HQ. They wouldn't have been shouting at LM had she not come on being a bit funny about her qualifications.

Several people genuinely thought she was trolling because it all seemed so very strange at that point.

Yep some people were, as I said at the end of my post. Some people were also being pretty rude to LM.

@Badvoc

I love the muppets. I see no problem with being compared to one. (My first crush was animal the drummer from the muppets band. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions wrt my taste in men/puppets)

Well, excitingly, we may have well be having a MN videochat with the Muppets coming soon... More to follow on that, I hope.

It's not obituary. It's a tribute. I wouldn't have written an obituary, which would have had to cover the failure of his politics.