Out of office, Benn was freer to speak his mind and he took full advantage. “I concluded that we needed far-reaching democratic reforms to the structure of the state, of industry, finance and the mass media. A view which guaranteed opposition from all those who enjoy power and who rightly suspected that what I was urging might strip them of that power.” Indeed it did. For the best part of a decade, he was the subject of a monstering in much of the media, fuelled as much by senior members of his own party as by his political enemies. For a while mentioning his name was liable to induce hysteria in otherwise sensible people. At least one tabloid took to depicting him with a Hitler moustache.