 In 1972 , Benn said in his diaries that " Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy <unk> , my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer " . While he acknowledged that he " might be ridiculed " for doing so , Benn said that " But ' Wedgie Benn ' and ' the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn ' and all that stuff is impossible . I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time . " In October 1973 he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn , and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to " Tony Benn " . Despite this name change , social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that " Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn , or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids , for years to come ( some older Tories were still doing so three decades later ) . " 
