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Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Tony Benn’s conversion to capitalism is no less praiseworthy for being a little belated

In this age of routine travel chaos — an age in which even the most carefully crafted travel plans are derailed by striking cabin crews, or by clouds of volcano ash, or by your budget airline depositing you at a foreign airport so far from the advertised destination that you need to catch another plane to complete your journey — what could be more welcome than somebody inventing a suitcase with a built-in seat that enables you to while away the time at airports and stations in comfort?

And what could be more surprising than discovering that the somebody who has responded with such entrepreneurial flair to the demands of the marketplace is Tony Benn? Yes, that Tony Benn. The one-time aristocrat who renounced his title to serve as an MP. The Tony Benn who said “market forces are the witchcraft of modern capitalism”. The man who, in his Diaries, hailed Mao Zedong as “the greatest man of the 20th century”.

Fed up with having to pass many hours at railway stations and airports with nowhere to sit, Mr Benn has designed a flip-down fisherman’s stool that can be attached to the side of a suitcase to provide a portable perch (see page 4). The prototype he cobbled together 18 months ago has, with the help of a designer, now been turned into a roadworthy model. Mr Benn wants to fund a production run of 30 before pitching his “seatcase” to luggage firms, gadget catalogues or department stores.

It may be too early to say that his new business venture shows that some men are born capitalists, some achieve a taste for capitalism and some have capitalism thrust upon them. Mr Benn once remarked that “capitalism is the longest and most painful of roads to socialism”. Maybe he just wants to be sitting comfortably for the long trip ahead.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7145676.ece