A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries (Tony Benn Diaries, Volume 9)

A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries (Tony Benn Diaries #9) by Tony Benn

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Reaching a great age might have something to do with it. But I think we also have a considerable respect for anyone who stands his ground as Benn has done. In some respects, they were two sides of the same coin. In these diaries, old age is clearly catching up with him. Such energy as he retains emanates from insatiable curiosity, a delight in other people and a genuine desire to make a difference. Benn loves his large and loving family, calls and sees them all the time and constantly seems to be going to Pizza Express down the road to have lunch with someone. Either he has his own table there or they are paying him a retainer.

I loved it! Lucky is the man who mellows in his old age. He maintains an exhausting schedule of political activity that would fell a man half his age. Tony Blair he loathes with undimmed intensity. His disappointment in Gordon Brown is withering. And he remains an incorrigible flirt.

There are presentiments throughout the text: his dark moments are darker than most. Good friends: Tony Benn with actress Saffron Burrows. There are some very funny moments, and some shrewd comments. Sadly missed!

A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries by Tony Benn 9780099564959

Feb 22, Barbara rated it really liked it Shelves: autobiography , britishness , non-fiction. I wrote this review in when Tony Benn was still alive and after I'd received a pre-publication copy of his final diaries. Hence the present tense I used is now somewhat obsolete but the impressions are still valid, I hope. Benn is lauded as one of the great diarists of his era but most of the contents of this book were never actually written down by him.

Instead he has for many years been recording his thoughts on audio tape and then trusting his friend and editor, Ruth Winstone, to pull th I wrote this review in when Tony Benn was still alive and after I'd received a pre-publication copy of his final diaries. Instead he has for many years been recording his thoughts on audio tape and then trusting his friend and editor, Ruth Winstone, to pull them into a readable shape.

The main diaries cover the period to , a time when Benn and his old-style Labour politics were hard to find in Britain. He quite liked Gordon Brown but could see that his days were numbered. We live with Benn through the military action in Iraq and Afghanistan which he deeply and passionately opposed.

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We also accompany him through the economic meltdown of the global economy which he feared but at the same time seemed to have expected and to almost welcome for its ability to restart a new order. Repeatedly he wonders how it is that money can be found to rescue banks and wage wars but not to build hospitals or support British trade. We wonder how a man in his 80s can leap out of bed in the small hours of the morning, grab a taxi to the station, travel to the other end of the country for a protest march or to give a few speeches, then travel all the way back again, arriving after midnight.

I enjoyed his stories about friends and family and his clear love and pride in the achievements of both. His granddaughter wants to stand as an MP despite still being in her teens and Tony only hints in passing that he has to be a little careful what he says as her political interpretations of Labour are rather different than his. He also goes to Glastonbury every year, musing that it makes little difference who the audience are, the reactions to his speeches seem to be pretty much the same.

Perhaps the saddest passages in the book are those where he reminisces about the loss of his wife, the woman he was married to for 6 decades and to whom he proposed on a park bench in Oxford — later buying the bench and moving it to his garden. He has lots of friends in the political and media worlds, flirts with Natasha Kaplinsky, Kate Silverton and Saffron Burrows, takes phone calls from Kofi Annan, and spends a lot of time in Pizza Express and Starbucks. Feb 26, Rob rated it liked it. Found this hard to get through as there is a lot of daily detail of little interest.

However, the best parts were those which 10 years on have an element of prophesy or more often irony. Not sure if his earlier diaries are of the same form. Jul 22, Martin rated it really liked it.

Easy reading. Interesting but can't say I shared all of his views. It does contain some good thought provokes. Enjoyed it. Jan 12, Paul rated it really liked it. Just a note to people who say Obama is a socialist. He's not, Tony Benn was a socialist and this is his last diary and last book after a lifetime of writing and politics. He's a son of privilege who rejected it for a seat in the House of Commons.

He's been a cabinet minister and a critic of his own party, the Labour Party. He was an early critic of the growth of oligarchical corporate power and politicians becoming its lackeys. He wrote this warning in s: "How "the Civil Service can frustrate Just a note to people who say Obama is a socialist. He wrote this warning in s: "How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"; The centralised nature of the Labour Party allowing to the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom" "The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"; and The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege.

As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked: Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes by the unions is minuscule. This power was revealed even more clearly in when the International Monetary Fund secured cuts in our public expenditure. These [four] lessons led me to the conclusion that the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact.

If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum. Dec 11, Nigel rated it really liked it. Like Tony Benn's other diaries this volume, which covered the last few years of his life during which he was retired, at least from being an MP but he never really retired from being an activist and campaigner for what he believed in. If you are interested in politics or in Tony Benn, whether or not you agree with his views his diaries are a really interesting read.

A few memories I have taken away from this volume are: - He continued to go on demonstrations and marches and every one he went to a Like Tony Benn's other diaries this volume, which covered the last few years of his life during which he was retired, at least from being an MP but he never really retired from being an activist and campaigner for what he believed in.

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A few memories I have taken away from this volume are: - He continued to go on demonstrations and marches and every one he went to also seemed to be attended by the same people eg Jeremy Corbyn. One gets the impression that that is all they do in their lives not a criticism just an observation.

Reading each year's account of this event I could not prevent the image entering my mind of the old Soviet May Day Parades marching past Brezhnev and his Politburo comrades. I don't recall him ever criticising any group of workers for going on strike. His reaction was almost Pavlovian: workers on strike, support them. OK in his latter years it was run by Blair and Brown but if he were still alive I would love to ask him "When did you last love the Labour Party and were fully in agreement with their policies?

I suspect the answer would be "Never". It was always leaking. Whoever his builder was took him for a ride because year after year whenever it rained his kitchen flooded. When he died the takings at the Notting Hill branch must have plummeted. Whatever you say about Tony Benn and his views you have to admire him. He stuck to his principles and was not corrupted by power although he didn't really have any post In many cases he was naive especially from a geo-political standpoint.

Feb 16, Bill Lawrence rated it it was amazing Shelves: diaries. I came to political diaries late in life and enjoy reading them. I started with Robin Cook's Point of Departure and found it a fascinating insight, not only into politics but also the man. The natural follow up was to head to the best diaries of his generation and Tony Benn.

I have now read the last three and am intending to go back to the beginning and read the remainders. It is amazing the energy of the man in this eighties, attending meetings, demonstrations and delivering his one-man show. B I came to political diaries late in life and enjoy reading them.

But what is so insightful and saddening is the insight to life outside the mainstream that had given him his purpose and the increasing frailty that hangs heavily over him. Nonetheless, Tony Benn shines through in his autumn blaze and provides an excellent commentary on the end of New Labour and the real world outside politics.

Continually rewarding and unparalleled. Mar 30, Paul Miller rated it really liked it Shelves: biography. This is very different from the other diaries. As Tony Benn enters his final years he is more reflective. It begins with a trip to a conference with Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan but the remainder is more about Tony on the periphery. It's bittersweet to read as he feels less physically confident but still pursuing a schedule of appearances and speeches.

The book is a biography of aging as much as anything else.

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