002.8 - Ideology and Belief
Politics: Is Jennifer a Bennite?
The Case For
It would be an easy conclusion to draw that Jennifer’s politics have been heavily influenced, directly or indirectly, by Tony Benn.
At the time of Jennifer’s introduction into the world of politics (c.1969) as an “awkward, freckle-faced undergraduate” (her own words) Benn was a local Member of Parliament and a prominent member of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government. Even if she had little direct contact with him, his influence on the local Labour Party would not have been insignificant.
We know that Jennifer’s core beliefs are progressive and to the left within the broad spectrum of opinions within the Labour Party, hence the easy assumption that it was from Benn that she acquired much of her philosophy.
The Case Against
The question here is not whether she and Benn share a common philosophy, for they certainly do, to a large extent, but rather where and in what direction we might find cause and effect. Jennifer is very much her own woman, quite capable of original and independent thought and of coming to her own conclusions based upon research and logical deduction. Clearly in subjective political matters, there is scope for even the most critical of thinkers to be influenced by others but in this case, who was influencing whom?
Now it would be clearly absurd to assert that our freckle-faced undergraduate had enough wit, wisdom or, indeed, agency, to be able to hold sway over a personality like Benn but we need to bear in mind that Benn was not always the radical left-winger that he is best known for being. It is generally acknowledged (not least by Benn himself) that it was his experiences in the Labour Government of 1964-70 that spurred him into believing there had to be a better way. So what, at around that time, might have influenced his political thinking?
For this we need to step back into (fictional) history - to what, perhaps, might be regarded as the true origins of the divergent timeline - to one Richard Charles Tyndall.
Tyndall, an engineer by profession, was well educated and well known as a radical thinker, both professionally and politically, in late Victorian Bristol society. To what extent he influenced anybody or anything is debatable but the same could not be said of his daughters, Imogen, Madeline and Zoe, the “Three Sisters”. Zoe and Imogen married two brothers, emigrant Yorkshire coal miners, both steeped in radical trade unionism, while Madeline married into money which she syphoned away to fund the sisters in their work of promoting and advancing their father’s philosophy, all three of them helping shape the Labour Party during the early years of the twentieth century.
Zoe had a son, Clive, and Madeline a daughter, Lucinda, who both served in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Sadly, Clive never made it home but Lucinda returned as a hero of the left and, though she never sought public office, remained hugely influential in Bristolian socialist circles until her death in 1984.
Not least amongst those upon whom Lucinda exerted influence would have been Tony Benn.
And what, I hear you ask, has any of this to do with Jennifer? Well:
Conclusion
In the divergent timeline it might be easier to conclude not that Jennifer is a Bennite but that both she and Benn are both Tyndallites.
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