He seems to have had a natural, genuine and lifelong sympathy for the disadvantaged, but was not always a doctrinaire socialist: as Harold Wilson's postmaster general the young Mr Benn was preoccupied mainly with trying (he failed) to remove the queen's head from postage stamps.

ECONOMIST: A great parliamentarian

Beer has, since the founding of the Republic, been this sort of glue that held us together way back when Sam Adams was plotting the revolution in the taverns over a beer, or Thomas Jefferson was sitting at the Queen's Head tavern in Philadelphia, drafting the Declaration of Independence over an American brew.

NPR: Sam Adams' Founder Lauds White House Beer Meet

Queen's Park head coach Billy Stark, Terry Butcher, who had come in to assist Bone, and St Johnstone assistant Sandy Stewart had also all been linked with the job.

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