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.

Ok, I agree with your last point in response to me Justine. The situation has not been aided by the author's responses.

I also agree a Tory viewpoint might have been interesting, and many suitable names have been suggested.

Justine...so you think that the above tribute was "fitting of the political legacy of Tony Benn"!!??...

Peggy said:

"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."

See, this sums up the rubbish of it all. They were indeed shouting abuse about me (false abuse) for pages and pages until I came on to comment. And set the record straight enough. I hate the piece fine; she's vacuous and a geisha not fine. Don't know why you have to be so disingenuous when anybody can click back and see however many pages already there before I replied. I wouldn't want my daughter to sit back and let others call her stupid when she isn't, and I don't intend to sit back myself.
And yes BTL = below the line. Often not representative of vast majority of readers, cf, ConHome. Hoping majority readers are other than the non-feminism I've seen the last couple of days.

I don't think I have been especially rude to you, Louise. I have been very clear that my dissatisfaction lies with Mumsnet for inviting you to comment.

And I'm happy to state that I, Alison Starr, stand by everything that I have said here - in my Mumsnet name and now, revealing my own name.

Justine - this has been awful.

@Badvoc

Point taken wrt the DM! but....either you want MN to be taken seriously or you don't. And this ^ is just not going to do it.

Yes I do want MN to be taken seriously and I think by and large it is. I don't think asking Louise Mensch to write a guest post about what Tony Benn meant to her undermines that in the least - as said, BBC newsnight - not newcomers to all this stuff - copied our take.

I do think everyone has the right to their opinion about the whether it was the post they wanted to read to mark TB's death and completely respect that it didn't work for everyone, for which we apologise.

Biwi... Yes. Awful :(

Oh, come on.

This is absolutely absurd.

I can see that this thread was upsetting to the OP as it was upsetting to people who clicked expecting a tribute and found her piece.

But louise, you've twisted what people said, pretending there were personal attacks where there weren't. You may be doing this because you're upset, which is understandable, but it is counter-productive.

You cannot possible know people are 'shouting'. In the same way, you should not pretend people called you 'vacuous' or 'stupid' when it seems they did not (and I exclude deleted posts here, because HQ removed them promptly for your benefit).

@BIWI

I don't think I have been especially rude to you, Louise. I have been very clear that my dissatisfaction lies with Mumsnet for inviting you to comment.

And I'm happy to state that I, Alison Starr, stand by everything that I have said here - in my Mumsnet name and now, revealing my own name.

Justine - this has been awful.

Yes, I agree the aftermath really has, BIWI

@LRDtheFeministDragon

Oh, come on.

This is absolutely absurd.

I can see that this thread was upsetting to the OP as it was upsetting to people who clicked expecting a tribute and found her piece.

But louise, you've twisted what people said, pretending there were personal attacks where there weren't. You may be doing this because you're upset, which is understandable, but it is counter-productive.

You cannot possible know people are 'shouting'. In the same way, you should not pretend people called you 'vacuous' or 'stupid' when it seems they did not (and I exclude deleted posts here, because HQ removed them promptly for your benefit).

Yes there were personal attacks imo - we deleted some really blatant ones - and it depends on your definition of course but a lot of the earlier posts in this thread are thinly veiled personal attacks suggesting LM lacks integrity or is lightweight because she has a beauty blog etc. That's the way I read it anyway.

Feminist Dragon (misnomer)

Go back and reread pages 1 through 7, when I responded (upon being asked if I was reading the thread and "would she come on and explain herself [sic]"). And then come back and say again there were not personal attacks. I hope I won't have to copy paste them, it's tough to do on the phone.

If MN wanted to lock this woefully unedifying thread, I wouldn't mind at all, but I would mind, immensely, if they deleted it. It was a good piece I was glad to write.

Well at least Mumsnet have a good idea about their choice of bloggers for their target audience.

(Hint: think of that episode of Changing Rooms with Llewelyn Bowen)

So, you know, silver linings.

Thank you Justine. I know I ought not to be upset, but I am. We're all human.

I appreciate you stepping in and saying that. Bowing out of the thread on that note.

justine - fair point, I think suggesting anyone is lightweight for having a beauty blog is out of line. And I commented myself that the 'geisha' remark was out of line and misogynistic. But there is a lot more to it than that, surely?

louise - re-read my post, please. I said that you pretended people had made personal attacks using the words 'vacuous' and 'stupid'. I explained that, before you, and excluding the deleted posts, no-one had actually made personal attacks using those words.

You think it's a good piece, Louise. That's not a statement of fact. Others thought it was vacuous (your piece, not you, as LRD pointed out).

It's not just the aftermath that's been awful.

Justine - a whole worse gets said in many a thread every day on Mumsnet to other ordinary posters.

Being called a lightweight is not really all that bad. Christ, I've had said worse to me at work from the public!

This is true, BIWI.

@Mycatistoosexy

Justine - a whole worse gets said in many a thread every day on Mumsnet to other ordinary posters.

Being called a lightweight is not really all that bad. Christ, I've had said worse to me at work from the public!

Well we'd delete it, were it reported Mycat. I've actually just read through the thread again and I'm surprised we didn't delete more of the personal comments tbh. It's one thing having a spat with someone face-to-face (as it were) but I'd personally be quite upset if lots of people suggested I was an intellectual lightweight (though I undoubtedly am ).

Louise, I honestly disagree. I think people were mainly objecting to Mumsnet's choice, rather than lining up to be unkind about you personally. Of course there may have been one or two scathing comments (to be expected on an open forum??) but the vast majority of the thread was not concerned with you. But that seems to have changed now.

Well going down the line of this is just an awful attack on Louise is a bit OTT sorry.

She has given as good as she received. If you feel like she has been personally attacked to that level then perhaps delete the thread.

@BIWI

It's not just the aftermath that's been awful.

Yes, I understand that lots thought we made the wrong choice for a guest post on TB's death BIWI and, as you know, we are always very happy to take criticism and learn from it and don't for a moment think we get it right all the time. But I think the reaction to LM on this thread (prior to her coming on) has been aggressive and unkind and not in the spirit of life we're actually celebrating here... suspect he might have voiced any objection more civilly.

Signing off for a bit now to deal with a few bedtime issues. Will be back later.

To confirm for the third time - I used the word vacuous in relation to the writing, not the person. If you

And the reason I am staying anonymous is because I don't want to identify myself in the many posts I have made on here about my children, my health and my reproductive history. If it was just down to this thread, I'd stick my name on my posts in an instant.