The British Labour Party politician Tony Benn (born 1925) held several cabinet positions between 1966 and 1979. He was a leading socialist and advocate of "participatory democracy." He gained perhaps even greater notoriety in later years when he published a series of tell-all diaries about the British cabinet.

Anthony Neil Wedgewood Benn was born in London on April 4, 1925, the son of the Ist Viscount Stansgate, a prominent member of the Labour Party. He had a middle-class upbringing, which was strongly influenced by the radicalism of his father and the religious beliefs of his mother. He attended Westminster and New College, Oxford, where his education was interrupted by World War II. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1943 and was stationed for a time in Rhodesia.

In 1946 Benn returned to Oxford and completed a degree in politics, philosophy, and economics. As president of the Oxford Union he skillfully defended the policies of...