The event promises to provide a rare opportunity to gain an insight into British political life from the 1950's until 2001 from a true heavyweight of the scene.

Benn's father was William Wedgwood Benn was a Liberal MP who defected to Labour and was later elevated to the Lords. Both his grandfathers were Liberal MPs.

Date: Wednesday, July 2
Venue: Garforth Working Men's Club
Time: 7.30pm
Tickets: £12 & £10 (conc.)

* Click here for latest Garforth and Swillington news.

After serving in the RAF during World War II, he worked as a radio producer for the BBC. He was elected to Parliament as member for Bristol South-East in 1950, aged of 25. However he knew he would have to fight the establishment over Peerage law. Knowing he would be disqualified from the House of Commons when his father died, Benn campaigned from the early 1950s for a change in the law to allow peers to renounce their titles & continue to sit in the Commons. On his fathers death Benn had to vacate his seat & did not return until The Peerage Act 1963 came into force.

In the 1960s, under Harold Wilson, he became Postmaster General & then Minister of Technology. In the 1970s he became Secretary of State for Industry & then for Energy, including responsibility for overseeing the development of Concorde.

In 1981 he stood for election as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party – a contest he lost by a margin of barely 1%. He also stood & lost a leadership battle in 1988.

In 2001 he retired from Parliament "to devote more time to politics". He became a leading figure of the British opposition to a war on Iraq, & in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to interview Saddam Hussein for British TV.

Benn served in the House of Commons for over fifty years - the longest serving MP in Labour Party history. He was a cabinet minister for eleven years.
 
He is Now President of the Stop the War Coalition & has published 9 vols. of diaries from 1947 to 2007.

Tickets: info@garforthartsfestival.co.uk also available at Garforth Bookshop, 15 Main St. Garforth (0113 286 3534) & Jumbo Records, St. Johns Centre, Leeds

Website: www.garforthartsfestival.co.uk

Festival Office: (0113) 3368619