We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

I've been a member of the Labour Party sixty five years, and I remain in it, but I think it's all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.

If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child

I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!

The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England.

Change always follows the same pattern. If you come up with something new they try and put you off.If that doesn't work they call you stark raving bonkers.If that doesn't work they lock you up like the suffragettes.Then, after a pause, the change happensand you can't find anyone that doesn't claim to have been fighting for it with you.

It is obvious I shall have to abandon my hopes of getting the Queen's head off the stamps.