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Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), originally known as Anthony Wedgwood Benn or Wedgwood Benn (and colloquially as Wedgie Benn), but later as Tony Benn, was a British politician who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 47 years between 1950 and 2001 and a Cabinet minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was situated on the party's hard left, ideologically identifying as a democratic socialist. Benn inherited a hereditary peerage on his father's death (as 2nd Viscount Stansgate), preventing him continuing as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons,〔''Re Parliamentary Election for Bristol South East'' () 2 Q.B. 257, () 3 W.L.R. 577〕 and then campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. In the Labour Government of 1964–70 he served first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as a "technocratic" Minister of Technology. He served as Chairman of the Labour Party in 1971–72 while in opposition, and in the Labour Government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet, initially as Secretary of State for Industry, before being made Secretary of State for Energy, retaining his post when James Callaghan replaced Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was again in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on its left wing and the term "Bennite" came into currency as someone associated with radical left-wing politics. Benn was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office." After leaving Parliament, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 until his death in 2014.〔(retrieved 9 December 2014 )〕 ==Early life and family== Benn was born in London on 3 April 1925.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Tony Benn – Official Website )〕 Benn's father William Wedgwood Benn was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords with the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942 – the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. From 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government. Benn's mother, Margaret Wedgwood Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the ''League of the Church Militant'', which was the predecessor of the ''Movement for the Ordination of Women''; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness. Both of Benn's grandfathers were also Liberal MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan). Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day dates back to his earliest years; he met Ramsay MacDonald when he was five, David Lloyd George when he was 12. Benn later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi. This was in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India. In the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling (2009) in a speech: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"〔A fuller transcript of that speech, in which he called the Home Guard "Dad's Army", is given in the section "Retirement and final years".〕 In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=William Wedgwood Benn )〕 He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, two months after the European Second World War ended on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September. Benn attended Westminster School and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from ''Who's Who''; in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted save for his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely. In October 1973 he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book ''Speeches'' from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949 and nine days later he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children – Stephen, Hilary, Melissa and Joshua – and ten grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a prominent career as an educationalist. Benn's children have been active in politics. His first son, Stephen, was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son, Hilary, was a councillor in London, and stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, becoming the Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003–07, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010 before becoming Shadow Foreign Secretary in 2015. This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010, becoming the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate in the process. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford. He became a vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of his life.〔("Tony Benn: making mistakes is part of life" ), ''The Daily Telegraph'', 12 August 2009.〕〔("Tony Benn: You Ask The Questions" ), ''The Independent'', 5 June 2006.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tony Benn」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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