What would Jack Straw have said about dropping bombs on Iraq? - No, not the Foreign Secretary but the Hedgerow Priest executed for being an instigator of the Peasants’ Revolt
Keswick's Theatre by the Lake was packed to the rafters when he visited last week to provide a commentary on "Writing on the Wall", words that dissenters had spoken, from the days of the priest who took Christ’s words too literally for the authorities of his time, to a soldier who refused to fight in the Gulf war, in their courageous, and often doomed, defence of human rights against the power of oppression. The songs of Roy Bailey, a folk singer with one of the world's finest voices and worst memories, made those inspiring words live on in music and touched the hearts of everyone in the theatre.
However they were unaware that they had missed an opportunity to get involved in conversation with the true campaigner, himself a master of dissent. Earlier the same day Mark Urban had been called away from his afternoon slot by BBC duties, and Tony Benn had been asked at short notice to fill in for an hour. Unscripted but not unprepared, telling it how it is with no excuses or apologies, he had plenty to say about the party he had joined in 1942. "Being an MP is unique: it’s the only job where there is one employee and 60,000 employers and that’s what forces MPs to listen." And that’s what he has learned most from over fifty years of being a consistent campaigner for justice, freedom and equality - listening to ordinary people with everyday problems, people who want their views to count for something, their voice to be heard and to feel "represented not managed" by politicians. People who are against war in Iraq or Iran, who want their public services, schools and the NHS to remain publicly funded, not privatised, students and pensioners to be properly provided for, the weak and the vulnerable to be protected.
Once vilified by the media and members of his own party and labelled a looney lefty, he now represents the majority of public opinion and that appears to be to the left of the Labour Party. His principles haven’t changed in over fifty years of politics and in an age of sleaze and mistrust, he stands out as someone who just tells it like it is. We might not agree with everything he stands for and he admits he's been wrong on issues in the past. But he is right in telling us that the Labour Party was created for and still belongs to the people. We should be prepared to fight from within it for social justice. He is proud of its achievements in lifting millions of families out of poverty, with irreversible reforms like the minimum wage, but unlike other pussy cats from the left, Benn roars dissent from inside the Labour Party.

(Inset, Carmel Pollen with Tony Benn)