Tony Benn famously fought a lengthy battle to be allowed to abandon his hereditary seat in the House of Lords. He won but the title remained.
And thus, his eldest son — Stephen Benn — is now Viscount Stansgate.
Unlike his brother Hillary, now Shadow Secretary of State for Communities, Stephen chose not to follow his Pa into politics, carving out instead a career for himself in science policy.
A taste for electoral politics is not the only thing Benn Jnr didn’t inherit from his Left-wing father. Stephen was once very senior at the Royal Society of Chemistry, which back then refused to recognise the trade union to which some of its staff belonged.
An enterprising union rep decided to take Stephen out for lunch to ask for his help in resolving the dispute. “But really,” Benn told him, “what’s the point of joining a union?” “Ask your f***ing dad” was the activist’s reply. Some apples do fall far from the tree.
