Tony Benn: a life in pictures

Anthony Wedgewood Benn, aged 27 in 1950, Labour party candidate in the Bristol South East by-election. Photograph: PA

Labour candidate Tony Benn out canvassing with his wife in Bristol in 1950 Photograph: PA

Tony Benn outside the Houses of Parliament in March 1961
Photograph: Philip Jones Griffiths/The Observer

With his family in 1961. Left to right: Joshua, 2, Melissa, 4, Hillary, 7, and Caroline his wife, oustide the family home Photograph: Edwin Sampson / Daily Mail / Rex/Daily Mail / Rex

Benn gives a thumbs-up sign at Downing Street, after the prime minister, Harold Wilson, had appointed him postmaster general, in October 1964 Photograph: Moore/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Benn, as industry secretary, leaves no doubt about his views on the European referendum in 1975, at a public meeting of the Get Britain Out Campaign at Acton Town Hall in London Photograph: PA

At a ministerial discussion on Concorde in 1975 with Marcel Cavaille, France's secretary of state for transport, and Lord Beswick, minister of state at the Department of Industry Photograph: Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images

At the Labour party conference in Brighton in 1979 with then prime minister James Callaghan Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images

Photographing Denis Healey during the Labour party conference in 1981
Photograph: Don McPhee/The Guardian

With pensioners protesting at the Labour conference in 2000 Photograph: The Guardian

Benn is applauded after his speech to the crowd at an anti-war protest in Trafalgar Square in September 2003
Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian

Benn speaks to reporters following a news conference at the Ministry of Information in Baghdad in February 2003. Benn, who came to Iraq on his own initiative, said he videotaped an interview with the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, the first in 12 years, which was to be aired a few days later Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

Benn is greeted by Saddam Hussein prior to an interview in Baghdad in February 2003 in this image made from television. Benn met with the Iraqi leader for two hours and then returned to Britain and offered to discuss the meeting with the British prime minister, Tony Blair Photograph: ARAB TV via APTN/AP

Benn laughs with protester Brian Haw during an anti-war protest in London, 2007 Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Giving a speech in the Leftfield tent at the Glastonbury Festival in 2008 Photograph: John Rahim/Rex Features

Diarist and former politician Tony Benn before speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2008 Photograph: Murdo Macleod

At a rally in Hyde Park, during a protest organised by the TUC, called The March for the Alternative in London in 2011. Tens of thousands of Britons were protesting against the coalition government's austerity measures Photograph: Kevin Coombs/Reuters