Naomi Wayne writes: As a 17-year-old first-year law student at the LSE in 1968, I dropped in on a lunchtime meeting addressed by Tony Benn. Well to the left of the then centrist minister, I was at odds with his views, and said so. Ten minutes later, the meeting ended and when Benn emerged he made a beeline for me and launched into a passionate defence of his position. We spent several minutes disagreeing with each other. I was hugely impressed, not with his arguments but with his desire to engage on an equal footing with a young and obscure student and with his total lack of self-importance. Deference was dying in 1968 but for Benn it had never existed.
↧