Corbyn was a supporter of Tony Benn

The Claims and the facts

"Corbyn was a supporter of Tony Benn". ~ Yes he was (That's got the easy one out of the way)

"And it was Benn in the 1970s that tried to destroy the UK". ~ Benn didn't set out to destroy the UK he had views that he thought were correct and wasn't prepared to concede on them. Corbyn has learnt from that mistake, which is why hes trying to include views from both left and right sides of the labour party.

"Benn had done so much damage to the UK that when Thatcher came to power she took over a country with 13% unemployment" ~ Unemployment was 5.3% in 1979 and it increased to 7.2% by end of 1997, it also peaked at nearly 3.2 million during Thatchers term) 

and inflation of near to 24%. ~ Inflation in 1979 was 13.4%

And the UK had gone bankrupt pre Thatcher. The UK has never gone bankrupt, in 1976 there were problems that led to the UK going to the IMF for a $3.9billion loan. By 1977 circumstances had improved and the UK never took all of the loan.


List of Prime Ministers

1970-74 Edward Heath
1974-76 Harold Wilson
1976-79 James Callahan
1979-90 Margret Thatcher
 


1972: UK unemployment tops one million

"The number of people out of work and claiming benefit has risen above one million for the first time since the 1930s"

"The Speaker was forced to suspend the sitting for 10 minutes for order to be restored after the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, was greeted with prolonged abuse and catcalls from the Labour benches.
Mr Heath said he "deeply deplored" the level of unemployment"


 Note on the graph below the period folowing 1979 the thatcher era 

"For example, taking figures for the Thatcher-Major Conservative period in office from the LFS, unemployment increased from 1.4 million at the end of 1979 to over two million in 1997, and from a rate of 5.3% to 7.2%."

https://fullfact.org/economy/labour_government_record_unemployment-31114

 






http://benpoliticalblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/judging-tony-benn.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/20/newsid_2506000/2506897.stm 
https://fullfact.org/economy/labour_government_record_unemployment-31114 
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/sterling-devalued-imf-loan.htm 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4553464.stm 
Historical UK Inflation Rates (CPI) 
UK Unemployment Stats and Graphs
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/datablog/2013/apr/08/britain-changed-margaret-thatcher-charts