"I'm very much part of an oral tradition," says veteran Labour politician Tony Benn. "I strongly feel that if you go and hear somebody speak, you can look at them and work out what you think of what they're saying.

"But if you watch someone on TV you don't know whether he wrote the speech or not, you can't ask a question - you are a spectator in politics instead of being a participant."

It is this desire to talk to people in person that motivates Mr Benn to visit different parts of the country, answering questions from the audience and discussing his life in politics and what he thinks about changes in the Labour Party.

The longest serving Labour MP in the history of the party, Mr Benn had to campaign for the right to renounce his peerage after his father died so he could continue to sit in the House of Commons.

He was a cabinet minister in the Wilson and Callaghan governments from 1964 to 1979, as minister of technology, Secretary of State for both industry and energy and president of the Council of European Energy Ministers in 1977.

He was an elected member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party from 1959 to 1994, and chairman of the party in 1971/2.

But it is since retiring from the House of Commons in 2001 after 50 years in Parliament that Mr Benn, 83, says he has had "much more time for politics".

He now spends his time campaigning for the causes closest to his heart: the Stop the War Coalition (of which he is president), students' and workers' rights and the protection of civil liberties.

Whatever the cause, his main aim is to encourage people to take action: "When I was at school the teacher would say You haven't quite got it right, but you carry on.' "So much in life puts you down. The 11-plus - if you fail that, you're being told by the government you're a failure for life.

"I'm trying to encourage people to do things - not necessarily with a party, but for whatever cause they feel strongly about - with the Stop the War Coalition for example, or if they're pensioners, then to campaign for a decent pension."

As well as campaigning, Mr Benn has shared details about his experiences in public life by publishing his copious diaries, which he dictates to tape every evening; his longest entry so far for a single day is 4,000 words.

He says: "I flew to Tokyo once and I was so determined I was going to do my diary even though I was exhausted.

"I fell asleep while I was dictating it, and I have a wonderful tape of me falling asleep as I'm talking, and then waking up and trying to carry on and get myself back together. It's much more real than just reading it."

He recommends writing a diary as a way of learning from past experience. "If you're a diarist, you get three chances to learn: when it happens, when you write it down, and when you read it later and realise you were wrong," he says.

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