Tony Benn in Birmingham

10.14.00am GMT Fri 21st Mar 2008

Last night I went with a number of friends to see Tony Benn at Birmingham's Town Hall. I had seen him once before when he was very good and expected the same, I was not disappointed.

Despite being 83 and in his only words losing his hearing amongst other things he was as sharp as a pin. He spoke for a while on a number of subjects and then took questions. In the questions he certainly let someone know his views on not voting with an very powerful argument against abstention - interesting he is in favour of introducing a 'none-of-the-above' option along with changing to election system to the Single Transferable Vote.

One of his other great moments was taking about the splitting of the left - where he detailed some of the many leftist parties that you could vote for - I think he got up to ten!