London ( CNN ) -- Tony Benn , who has died in London aged 88 , was an inspiration to all of us who wanted to make the world a more peaceful and more equal place . He came from a privileged and political family , his father and grandfather both MPs , and he would have become Lord Stansgate in the early 1960s if he had not fought to renounce his hereditary peerage . Luckily he won , stayed an MP instead of mouldering in Britain 's upper House of Lords for the next five decades , and dedicated his life to socialist ideas and most importantly to campaigning for change . Tony was born in the aftermath of World War I . He was an airman in World War II , and often talked about his experience . He lost a brother in that war , but also saw it as a watershed , marking no return to the unemployment and fascism of the 1930s . As he said , the young conscripted troops became radicalized by the war , arguing that if there could be full employment in wartime , so there could be full employment in peacetime to build houses , hospitals , schools and all the other things people needed . He was Labour all his life , campaigning for the 1945 landslide , but in the last part of his life his main activity was outside Labour 's structures . I remember vividly how he used this wartime experience on one occasion . Just after Gordon Brown became prime minister , we wanted to hold an anti-war demo going from Trafalgar Square to parliament , but the march was banned by the police . I received a phone call from Tony to say that he had just dropped a letter off in Downing St complaining about this decision and promising to defy it . Sure enough he turned up on the day wearing his World War II medals and demanding to march . We set off , daring the police to arrest us . They did n't . He quipped that he was leaving parliament in order to spend more time with politics . This was after the death of his beloved wife Caroline , herself a socialist campaigner and writer . He spent the rest of his life campaigning for a range of causes , but above all he was identified with the Stop the War Coalition , of which I became the convenor when we launched it in 2001 . He campaigned and spoke at every demo , travelled round the country to hold rapturous and well-attended meetings , and became president of the campaign , a post he held up to his death . He was opposed to the wars the UK government and its U.S. allies were waging , including the latest attempt to start another war on Syria last summer . He also helped campaign against austerity , most recently through the People 's Assembly . Tony was polite , disciplined , hard working , political : all the things you could wish for in a campaigner . He was a delight to talk to , interested always in ideas , technological change , history , and building broad united campaigns . One of the last conversation I had with him he stressed the importance of organizing , and wanted May 1 , the international day of working class struggle , to be marked into 2014 as a day to rise up against austerity . That is an invitation I hope millions of people will take up . Maybe we could call it Tony Benn day . That would be a fitting legacy . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Lindsey German .
Tony Benn who has died in London aged 88 , came from a privileged and political family . However he renounced his peerage , and fought for socialist ideas . He was opposed to wars UK government and its U.S. allies were waging . Benn was polite , disciplined , hard working , political : all a campaigner should be - Lindsey German .