Call Me Mister

In the Gothic vastness of the House of Parliament, a blond young Englishman wandered familiarly through the members' smoking room, the green-carpeted corridors of the Commons and its stone-flagged lobbies. But although he was duly elected to Parliament from South-East Bristol in 1950 and returned three times since, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, 35, dared not enter the Commons chamber last week. The reason: upon the death of his father, Tony Wedgwood Benn had become the second Viscount Stansgate. As a peer, he was ineligible to sit in the House of Commons.

By his own account, Laborite Tony Benn first dreamed of becoming an M.P. when most of his boyhood chums were still aspiring to become locomotive engineers. He realized his dream at 25, rose rapidly in Labor Party ranks, last year was transport "minister:" in Labor's shadow Cabinet. But ever since his elder brother was killed while serving in the R.A.F., the shadowy menace of "the other place" (as the Commons calls the House of Lords) has hung over Tony.

Not Convertible. Six years ago, seeking to shake off the shadow, Tony plotted to get rid of his peerage in advance. His blonde, U.S.-born wife Caroline cheerfully agreed to forgo the name, state and dignity of a viscountess. "Titles belong in fairy tales," said she. Tony also had the support of his father, a distinguished colonial administrator and longtime M.P. who had reluctantly accepted his peerage only to help swell Labor's strength in the House of Lords. (The life peerage, which does not pass on to descendants, had not yet been created.) Between them, Tony and his father researched the history of the peerage for the past 700 years.

In the House of Lords, Tony first asked for permission to renounce his peerage. The lords refused. Next his father offered the Wedgwood Benn (Renunciation) bill, which would allow the title to remain in abeyance at least in his lifetime. "My son is not of noble blood," Lord Stansgate pleaded. "He is a commoner and wants to remain a commoner."

He cited Winston Churchill, who himself has steadfastly refused a peerage on the ground that "it is a terrible thing for a father to doom his son to political extinction." Implacably, Lord Hastings, whose title dates back to 1290, replied: "You cannot make a peerage a convertible commodity," and the bill was rejected 52-24.

Life or Death. Late last month, when the first Viscount Stansgate finally died at 83, Tony Wedgwood Benn found himself in limbo. The very day the old viscount breathed his last, the Commons cut off his now titled son's pay; all the young Benns, including four small children, were left without means of support. Tony's unemployment status was made official when his national insurance cards were returned. Nobody listened when the hapless peer insisted that everyone keep calling him just plain Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn. When he applied for the usual M.P.'s railroad pass to visit his constituency in Bristol, Viscount Stansgate was told to pay for the ticket himself.

Unresigned to his fate, Tony Benn mailed his viscountcy patent back to the Lord Chamberlain at Buckingham Palace. Last week he watched from the Commons visitors gallery as Home Secretary "Rab" Butler helpfully proposed that the Committee of Privileges investigate the question of whether Benn's parliamentary privilege had been violated. As a last resort, Benn could still defy the 1678 rule barring peers from Commons by standing for and winning re-election to the House --the device by which Charles Bradlaugh in the late 19th century overturned the rule barring atheists from Commons.

"Mr. Benn deserves to succeed," proclaimed the London Times, noting that the rule making peerages irrevocable was originally intended to strengthen the House of Lords against the subversive influence of the King. Added the Times dryly: "That threat has since receded."

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