UR TV CAST

He darts around his flat in the grounds of Chesterfield Labour Club, making endless cups of the drink that fuels him from morning to night: tea. “They’ve introduced a new pyramid tea bag, have you seen them?” he enthuses. On the wall is a painting of a Yorkshire pit village, a present from Arthur Scargill.He rails with unflagging energy against his favourite demons: Brussels, the global economy, the profit motive. The only hint of declining mental agility comes when he tries to recall the country where Kenneth Kaunda was president “This is what they call a senior moment.

It’ll come back to me in the night.”This is the man who 18 months ago accused Mr Blair of trying to destroy socialism. In 1992, he said the Labour Party had lost the election because it was too right wing. But for now, like others on the far left, Mr Benn is keeping his own counsel.”I’m a soldier in the middle of a war,” he says. “If I was putting on my tin hat and getting into the landing craft on D-Day, I wouldn’t want to discuss my view of the generals. At the moment, the most important thing is to get rid of a government that has inflicted the most horrific damage on this country.”He cannot, though, avoid the occasional barbed comment. Discussing Edward Heath, he says he respects him because he is consistent.

“The people I cannot abide are those who haven’t got an opinion until they read the latest Gallup poll.” He observes that Nelson Mandela did not succeed “because he had a spin doctor or a new suit”.And, although careful not to predict future party divisions, he warns that a Labour government would face high expectations “Popular aspirations will surface. It’s going to be a hairy time.”Mr Benn says he no longer wants or expects office. “If there are voices to be heard, they’re probably better heard with freedom,” he adds, ominously His silence is unlikely to last much beyond 2 May.. It is a quintessentially English dispute. In one corner, a determined home counties non-voter who, disillusioned with politics, demands that his name be removed from the electoral register In the other, the forces of bureaucracy. They refuse doggedly to comply – solely, it appears, because they do not believe they have to. The issue has given rise to an extraordinary 15-month correspondence between our hero, who wishes to remain anonymous, and the authorities.
This electoral refusenik, who lives in Hampshire, has no wish to evade taxation or to break the law He merely wishes formally to renounce his right to vote.