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Tony Benn was twice the politician Boris Johnson will ever be

OBSESSED self-publicist Boris Johnson’s reference to Labour under Jeremy Corbyn as a “Tony Benn tribute act” was intended to demean the opposition. It did the opposite.

It recalled a politician whose inner decency guided him to win political arguments by persuasion rather than personalised abuse or casual stereotypes.

Benn would never have insulted Britain’s black population by references to “piccaninnies” and “water-melon smiles.”

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