This biography traces Tony Benn's extraordinary 50-year political career from the day he first entered the House of Commons in 1950. Benn has always been a controversial figure. Nonetheless many of the policies he championed, including some for which he was widely belittled, have since entered the statute books. If history is a chronicle of ironies, there can have been little more ironic than when, following Benn's valedictory speech in the Commons in 2001, a Tory backbencher commended him to fellow MPs as Britain's greatest living Parliamentarian. This up-dated paperback edition contains additional material, providing an insight into Benn's views on the recent French elections, the tragic events of September 11th and the escalating crisis in the Middle East.