On 27 September 1989, hero of the left Anthony Wedgwood Benn – more commonly known as Tony Benn – was interviewed by ITN's Michael Brunson about the release of the third instalment of his political diaries, Against the Tide: Diaries, 1973-76. As well as discussing the history contained within the diaries, Benn explained the uniquely meticulous record-keeping system which he had developed throughout his political career and which had assisted him in assembling his diaries for publication. Having started a diary as a boy in the Second World War, the socialist stalwart kept up and expanded the practice over the following decades, building in the process an in-depth multi-media archive charting British political history in his lifetime. The diairies offered particular insight into the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, in which Benn served in various Cabinet posts. Benn, a mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, argued that the latest volume, which covered the IMF crisis faced by the Labour government in 1976, served to counter the "myth" that militant trade unions were responsible for the collapse of the Labour Government and the so-called Winter of Discontent that preceded the election of Margaret Thatcher. Moreover, Benn argued that the state of Britain after a decade of Thatcherism proved that free market economics had created discontents of its own.

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