The Benns

[Michael Hoover <HooverM@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Cabinet promotion for Hilary keeps it in the family
Proud moment for Tony as third generation Benn joins the club
Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Monday October 06 2003
The Guardian

In his latest diaries, Free at Last, covering 1991 to 2001, Tony Benn
rarely hides the pride he feels towards his children - and yesterday he
could not disguise his pleasure that his son Hilary had joined him and
his own father in the ranks of existing or former members of the
cabinet.

When Hilary, 48, rang his father at home in Holland Park, west London,
to break the news yesterday morning that he had been appointed
international development secretary, replacing Lady Amos who becomes
leader of the House of Lords, Benn senior said simply: "The house rocked
with delight."

It may not be an affirmation of the hereditary principle, but Benn
junior's elevation to the cabinet is another tribute to one of the great
British political families.

Hilary Benn's rise has been meteoric, albeit largely unnoticed. He
started as a junior international development minister, going to the
Home Office as a prisons minister and then back to international
development following Clare Short's resignation in May.

Two weeks ago he chaired the UN security council for half an hour while
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, had to be elsewhere.

His unfussy authority, and desire to avoid controversy for
controversy's sake, has won him praise inside Downing Street, and
equally importantly with the Foreign Office, a department that found
Clare Short's stewardship unsettling.

He has managed to avoid making political enemies, steering clear of
clashes between Blairites or Brownites and concentrating on the business
at hand.

"He is a very fine lad and widely respected across the spectrum," his
father said.

Tony Benn insisted that though his son was more in tune with government
thinking, they were both essentially independent-minded politicians.

"Well, Hilary has always said he is a Benn, but not a Bennite, and that
is just exactly what I say. I am not even a Bennite either; I am Tony
Benn. The word Bennite was invented by the Treasury to discredit me. I
am my own man, and he is Hilary Benn, his own man. We discuss politics
as a family and disagree, because we are serious people."

He did not say, but perhaps secretly hopes, that "the Benns go left as
they get older".

There are many examples of father and child making the cabinet, ranging
through the Pitts, the Churchills, the Cecils, the Chamberlains, the
Macmillans and Gladstones. Then there is the extended Callaghan family
in the shape of the former Labour prime minister, Lord Callaghan and his
daughter, Lady Jay, former leader of the Lords. But the only previous
British example of three generations in the cabinet appears to be the
Hailshams.

In the case of the Benn family, the lineage is more extensive. The
political dynasty starts in 1892, before the birth of the Labour party,
when John Benn was elected Liberal MP for Wapping and then later
Devonport. In 1906 his son, William Wedgwood Benn, was elected MP for St
George's Tower Hamlets, his father's old seat. As Tony Benn recalled
yesterday, he was aged one at the time.

Following the reappointment of Lloyd George as leader of the Liberals,
William resigned the Liberal whip, saying the leader could not be
trusted. Unusually, he resigned his seat and won Aberdeen North for
Labour in a byelection, going on to serve in the cabinet under both
Ramsey MacDonald and Clement Attlee.

Tony Benn recalled yesterday that his father immersed him in politics,
and the first Labour MP he met was Oswald Mosley. "I used to work in my
father's office, just as Hilary worked in my office. Politics has always
been our lives. I've never pushed him in any way, but he has always been
interested and very committed."

Benn senior recalls that he was very influenced by his father's saying:
"Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm
and dare to make it known."

That notorious willingness to dissent has inevitably made life for his
son that much harder, and indeed even created in Benn senior's regretful
view, a barrier to his progress.

When Hilary sought the post of head of Labour party research during
John Smith's tenure, his father made every effort to steer clear for
fear he would set back his son's chances. Hilary did not get the job,
but instead became head of policy at the MSF union.

Later, Benn senior did campaign for Hilary as an Ealing councillor,
advised him to take a post as special adviser on work to the education
and employment secretary, David Blunkett, and even went to Leeds Central
when Hilary won the seat at a byelection in 1999.

He proudly introduced his son to the Commons, describing the moment
touchingly in his diaries: "It was too much for me. I felt my face
crumbling. And when Hilary took the oath, then signed the nominal roll,
and walked past the front bench, with people patting him on the back to
shake hands with the Speaker, I just burst into tears.

"I did not want to take out my handkerchief, but I was overwhelmed by
it. It was heaven. I was so proud, absolutely as proud as can be."

His son's elevation to the Commons finally convinced Benn senior that
it would be time to move on, and allow Hilary space to make his mark.

He explains: "He is a very modest guy. He does not seek any sort of
publicity   partly because of the experience of being brought up in this
household."

But Tony Benn is not sure whether the cabinet will give his son any new
political perspective.

As a way of demystifying it, Benn senior calls the cabinet a committee.
"It was the most interesting committee on which I ever sat. We had Roy
Jenkins, Barbara Castle, Dick Crossman, Tony Crosland, Harold Wilson. In
January 1968 we had eight full-day meetings of the cabinet in a month,
morning and afternoon. It was just after devaluation and very big
decisions were taken."

He adds: "I don't know how it works now, but everything has changed."


One of his son's first tasks as international development secretary
will be to try to help build the reconstruction movements in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the consequences of two invasions that his father passionately
opposed.

Now he is in the front rank of politics, the searching questions will
soon start about Hilary's true abilities and politics.

And if the genetic, as opposed to hereditary principle, kicks in, watch
this space for one of Hilary's four children eventually taking their
first step on the political ladder.

1892-2003: a political dynasty

 John Williams Benn (1850-1922)
Furniture designer turned publisher who became the Liberal MP for
Wapping in 1892 but lost to Conservative candidate Harry Marks by four
votes in 1895. Took Marks to court complaining of bribery but lost.
Pioneered cheap and efficient transport in London and was responsible
for the introduction of London's electric tramway in 1903. MP for
Devonport in 1904,defeated in 1910. Created a baronet in 1914.

William Wedgwood Benn (1877-1960)
 In 1906, aged 28, won his father's old seat at Wapping for the
Liberals. In 1910 appointed whip by Asquith, then junior lord of the
Treasury. In 1918, stood as a Liberal for Leith and became leader of
Liberal MPs called the Wee Frees who refused to support David Lloyd
George. When Lloyd George gained control of the Liberal party in 1927,
Wedgwood Benn became Labour MP for North Aberdeen.

Ramsay MacDonald made him secretary of state for India in 1929 but he
lost his seat in 1931. Won byelection at Gorton, Manchester in 1937. In
1940 became Lord Stansgate and in 1945 Clement Attlee appointed him as
his secretary of state for air.

 Tony Benn (1925-)
Son of William Benn; retired in May 2001 after 50 years in parliament
and as the longest serving Labour MP ever. He was a cabinet minister in
the Wilson and Callaghan governments from 1964-79.

An elected member of Labour's NEC from 1959-94, and chairman of the
party in 1971-72. He stood to inherit his father's title but after a
successful campaign and the subsequent Peerage Act of 1963 was able to
renounce his title.

 Hilary Benn (1953-)
Followed his father, Tony, into politics as a special adviser to David
Blunkett and as former head of policy and communications at the MSF
union.

Has been MP for Leeds Central since byelection in 1999 before entering
the Department for International Development in 2001. Home Office
minister last year and this, and then international development
secretary. Married with four children.