Word: benne
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Denis Healey, there was symbolism as well as pleasure in the occasion-a signal that he was a man for all tastes. Healey had just been re-elected as the deputy leader of the Labor Party. Meanwhile, at a fish and chips place a few blocks away, Tony Benn, Healey's unsuccessful leftist challenger, sipped Coke from a can and ruminated on the sudden show of vigor from the party's moderates that had given the radicals their first setback in two years...
...smashing triumph -he won by eight-tenths of 1%-but it was important because the battle for the relatively insignificant post of deputy leader had been so bruising that it threatened to tear the party apart. The moderates were striving to turn back the challenge of the extremists, under Benn's leadership, that had rapidly gained momentum since the party was turned out of power in May 1979. The Bennites want Britain to scrap its nuclear arms, pull out of NATO and nationalize banks and insurance companies. In February, rebelling against the leftward tilt of the party, some...
...beat Benn, the moderates marshaled the help of powerful trade union barons, who made it clear that they would not tolerate another year of the damaging infighting that has deflected attention from burgeoning unemployment and the anti-union policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government. At the last minute, the moderates also got an unexpected assist from 35 of Benn's fellow leftist M.P.s who do not like his political opportunism. They cast their votes for a dark-horse leftist on the first ballot, then abstained on the crucial second ballot to give Healey the edge. Next...
...Healey side maintains that much of Benn's support comes from Marxists and other radicals who are not bona fide Laborites. They do not accuse Benn of being Marxist himself, a label he rejects, but there is little doubt that he has become a point man for Marxist groups. Benn's left would take Britain out of the European Community, unilaterally scrap all of Britain's nuclear weapons and bar U.S. cruise missiles from British soil. It would abolish the House of Lords, nationalize all important industries and redistribute the nation's wealth. "If we stick...
...Benn wins this year or next, his election will affect not only the Labor Party. Large numbers of Labor voters-as well as some Labor M.P.s-could be expected to defect to the Social Democrats, who are already the most potent new force to arrive on the British political scene since the Labor Party itself was formed in 1900. The S.D.P. was founded last spring by the so-called Gang of Four-former Labor Cabinet Ministers Williams, Roy Jenkins, David Owen and William Rodgers-after longstanding differences between Labor's left and right wings finally seemed irreconcilable. The Social Democrats...