Feeling Empowered.

Last Thursday (Feb 26th) I went to see An Audience With Tony Benn at Shrewsbury's new Theatre Severn. Ever since he retired as an M.P. in 2001 Benn has made it his mission to tour around the country and try and embolden people to make the most of their democratic right and awaken them politically. He attempts this by returning to a basic format as old as the hills - being the focal point of a mass discussion amongst normal people, with no politicking and no polemic. Therefore the debate is driven by the audience, with Benn there to offer his (not inconsiderable) wisdom on the subjects raised. What ensued was a debate that got to the very heart of democracy.

Benn is noted as being one of the great orators of the 20th century but it was still a pleasant surprise to discover that he has a keen sense of humour, and with 50+ years in politics he has plenty of anecdotes! The night begins with him talking for 15-20 minutes, before inviting the audience to ask questions. His passion for motivating people to engage in their democratic rights soon becomes apparent and, at 83 years of age, is frankly awesome. When someone questions the point of voting, suggesting that in his view all governments are corrupt, Benn slaps him down immediately. As he points out, he bought and read Hitler's Mein Kampf aged 11 and quotes Hitler as saying that all governments are corrupt and that he should be given total power to run the country and rid it of corruptible politicians. It is, as he says, extremely dangerous to abandon democracy.

A lot of the night is taken up with debating the role we all have to play in the immediate political future with a deep recession looming. When the rise of the BNP and their will to exploit people's fears amidst hard times is brought up Benn recalls that Oswald Mosely (the II World War leader of the British Fascist Party) was a labour MP before switching to fascism as an example of how extreme circumstances can have radical effects on a person's ideology. But this is no reason to abandon democracy, instead - and this is an opinion I wholeheartedly share - the only way to deal with extreme politics is to tackle it head on. If the far right (and their politics of fear and intimidation) become prominent in the coming months and years it is the responsibility of all of us to confront it - not to ban it. With the BNP looking like it may well win seats in Parliament if it's current growth continues (something that Mosely's lot never achieved) then we will truly be in new dangerous territory.

However, it was the optimism of a lot of the night that I most connected with. For instance, he says most normal people will look at the billions of pounds being poured in to banking system and quite reasonably ask 'why can't we put this money into building schools, houses, hospitals etc?' He then talks about the politics of fear and governments scaring us into obedience. Which makes one wonder, why not? Why can't nationalise the banks? Why can't we put all the money into the infrastructure of the country - thus creating jobs, taking people out of poverty, creating a better educated population. If you try and suggest this politicians will ridicule you, this is one of their tactics of control. The politicians want to stop you pursuing ideas that would shift the power back to the people - they want to maintain the status quo. It has always been this way, but the next few years are a chance to say that we want a change - we don't want to be dictated to by the free market. Banks are there to keep our money safe, this is a public service - just like the Fire Service, Police, Royal Mail. And you wouldn't privatise those (well, not unless you're Brown or Mandelson). But whether or not you agree with this the point is that we should not be scared of our own ideas and more importantly, we should act on them. Change may not happen quickly, but it nearly always comes in the end. But only if we act to bring it about.

In the last year Tony Benn has done 169 of these shows. He is 83. Whether or not you agree with his ideology is not important - we should all follow his lead and make sure we make the most of the power that is ours and that generations of people, from the Tolpuddle Martyrs to the Suffragettes, fought to gain.