Veteran politician Tony Benn attracted a sell-out crowd when he spoke in Canterbury on Saturday evening.

The 84-year-old former Labour MP and cabinet member was at the Gulbenkian Theatre, Kent University, where he said the things facing the world now were terrifying.

“I have 10 grandchildren and I look at the world increasingly through their eyes,” he said. “My generation made a complete muck of the world but the younger generation now have the chance to clean it up.”

Speaking about the recession Mr Benn said: “In wartime economics don’t matter.

"When we set up the welfare state in 1948 we were bankrupt but we still did it because it had to be done.

"Mrs Thatcher’s policy was to destroy the trade unions, which she did and strangle local government and for many years we were told to leave everything to the market. Now we have the credit crunch.”

Mr Benn said the banks were so important he believed that they should all be publicly owned.

“We are about to spend £78 billion on a new trident missile,” he added. “How about spending that money on things which matter? If we ever use nuclear weapons it will be the end.”

In response to questions from the audience Mr Benn said 16-year-olds should be given the vote.

“If you are old enough at 16 to marry, get a job and pay income tax then you are old enough to vote,” he said.

Mr Benn also spoke about the way in Britain was becoming a police state and how the police were using the terrorism laws to do this and he questioned the need for all the spy cameras in the country.

“The Government wants to know everything about you, all your phone calls and would like to read your letters but it does not want you to know anything about what it is doing,” he added. “This is an old problem but now it is in a new and acute form. It has got completely out of control.”

And he said that the UK should pay compensation to Iraq for the damage it had caused to the country.