Why are so Many People Mourning the Death of Tony Benn?

I didn't write an obituary for Margaret Thatcher. There would have been too much vitriol. Such things were best left to HollieT, who could at least be objective about it.

Perhaps I shouldn't write an obituary for Tony Benn. The emotion is quite opposite, but amounts to the exact same lack of objectivity.

I hope that HollieT steps into the void again.

The text that broke the news to me this morning stated that the sender didn't ever expect to cry over the loss of a politician. A comment on my knee-jerk blog entry echoed much the same sentiments. 'I never thought I'd see the day when I was sad about a politician dying.'

All over the internet, people are going to see the same distraught emotions pouring out from their politically left-leaning British friends. It is that big a deal. But also likely to cause some confusion amongst those international readers, who maybe never encountered him.

Let me try and explain.

For those of us who encountered him in later life, it's a bit of a shock to realize that Anthony Wedgwood Benn also came from an aristocratic family. His grandfather was awarded a baronet. His father was made Viscount Stansgate.

This ruling elite is everything that Tony Benn ever railed against. He put his money where his mouth was in 1960, when a double personal loss meant that both his father and his elder brother weren't there to hold the hereditary peerage.

Tony Benn was the 2nd Viscount Stansgate, and he wasn't at all pleased about it.

He had initiated a campaign, which would allow peers to renounce their title, before his father had even passed away. When William Benn did die - in November 1960 - his son was automatically ineligible to sit in the House of Commons.

This prompted a by-election in Bristol South East, where Tony was the current parliamentary representative. He refused to give up his position without a fight, and was duly re-elected against the laws of the land. An investigation proved that voters knew very well that Tony Benn was ineligible for the position, even as they voted him into it.

The furor caused the Peerage Act (1963), which gave people like him the right to surrender their titles. Twenty minutes after it was passed, Viscount Stansgate waltzed into the registrar's office and emerged as plain, old Mr Tony Benn, Member of Parliament for Bristol South East.

I've spoken with Tony Benn, and I've observed him on many occasions - at the various protests, rallies and festivals where our paths crossed - speaking with others. He always gave the impression that we were all equals; that every voice counted; that every mind and mouth had something to contribute to the discussion; that we could move mountains, if we just all worked together.

That was part of his iconic greatness.  He discerned the greatness in us all and made us want to live up to his vision of ourselves.

As I write this, I'm constantly flicking back to read the live reaction to the death of Tony Benn, as streamed by the BBC. I'm struck by how many people who, like me, are commenting about when they met him.

There's an inherent theme running through it all. Tony Benn was somebody who was always out there, mixing with the public, hearing views and marching at the spearhead of mass campaigns. He was a man who knew how to lead, but also how to eloquently speak the truths that so many of us were thinking.

He was there at the rallies, delivering those firebrand speeches, then sticking around to meet and greet. He was there on the streets, personable and approachable, well into his eighties.

I close my eyes and I picture him, not in Parliament, but at the Glastonbury Festival. An elder statesman, calmly smoking his pipe, while hippies, crusties, old punks and new, greebos, Goths and hipsters milled around. He knew them all from the first smile. He valued them all.

He was one of us and now he's gone. But his legacy burns so brightly. It's going to take a lot of us to pick up, and carry on, with such a large dropped baton. There's enough. He left enough.