I was genuinely saddened to hear of the death of the former Labour Leader, Michael Foot, yesterday. Without a doubt, his death marks the passing of one of the great parliamentarians of the post-war era.
Born into a Liberal family, Foot became a committed socialist after he witnessed extreme poverty in Liverpool. He subsequently came to London and worked for both Tribune, and for Beaverbrook as a highly successful journalist and writer. Foot gained his first great claim to fame as the author of Guilty Men, the 1940 polemic against the pre-war appeasers.
In Labour’s 1945 landslide victory, Foot unexpectedly won Plymouth Devonport for the party. After losing Devonport in 1955 he succeeded his hero, Aneurin Bevan in Ebbw Vale after his death in 1960.
Michael Foot represented a tradition in the Labour Party that often fell out with the party’s leadership, and he even had the whip taken from him in the early 1960s. He also shunned high office, despite several offers of ministerial posts from Harold Wilson; he finally he relented to be Employment Secretary and then Leader of the House under Callaghan.
Much has been written about Foot’s great oratory (a skill sadly lacking in modern politics) and for me, one of his most memorable Commons speeches had to be the one he gave as Leader of the House of Commons on 28th March 1979, when he closed the ‘No Confidence’ debate on the night the Callaghan Labour Government fell.
He became my party’s leader in the aftermath of that 1979 election defeat and Callaghan’s resignation the following year, as the candidate most acceptable to both wings of the party. It is easy to be critical of Foot’s leadership not least because he led Labour into near oblivion in the 1983 General Election where we came close to third place behind the SDP-Liberal Alliance!
I actually take the more sympathetic ‘Kinnock view’ that Michael Foot did his best to hold what had become a divided and self-indulgent party together in extremely difficult circumstances. In any case, the Labour Party survived (which was by no means certain back in the early 1980s) and after 18-years in the political wilderness, eventually returned to government.
The 1997 Labour manifesto couldn’t have been more further removed from that of 1983 – or ‘the longest suicide note in history’, as Sir Gerald Kaufman famously dubbed it.
Whatever Michael Foot thought of Tony Blair’s new Labour project, he continued to passionately support the Labour movement and the Labour government, and loyally kept quieter than I imagine he would have done in the 1950s!
I was a young teenager when Michael Foot became leader of the Labour Party. I was highly politicized from a young age through my mum who was a Trade Union shop steward through the winter of discontent that brought down Callaghan.
Michael Foot was the last of the great warriors for the working class though it didnt seem so at the time. I remember watching him at conference when the party looked like it was going go implode and admired his commitment and honesty.
Politicians no longer believe in anything like he did they are managers nothing more. Even when they do they rarely stand up for it.
The best compliment you can pay Michael Foot is he never took the path of least resistance. Unlike the massed ranks of politicians today.
Sorry if that offends Andrew but that is how it looks from outside Westminster.
I was 9 at the time of the 1983 General Election. My memory from polling day was going with my mum to Denton Central primary school, which was the local polling station. The school is next to Victoria Park and I spotted my school friend on the slide so my mum let me play in the park while she did her bit for democracy.
My friend had obtained from somewhere a roll of stickers. Remembering that my mum was voting for somebody called Andrew (Bennett as it happened) I duly plastered myself in these stickers. Unfortunately the Tory candidate was also called Andrew. When my mum saw me – and having just voted Labour – it wasn’t just my stickers which were blue!
Oh happy days!
You are but a mere pup my lad lol. I joined the Labour Party in 1978 aged 11. My first job for them was standing outside the local primary school during the council elections of that year collecting polling cards from people entering who voted Labour.
I spent the whole day running backwards and forwards betweent the school and my house where mum was encamped with her Manchester Labour Councillor friends and trade unionists totting up the results.
Sad for sure, he was a lovely man and of his time. I could listen to him speak all day. RIP.
Michael Foot’s oratory was by no means as good as it was cracked up to be. Even when he was on good form, his unusual intonation and stress came across as somewhat eccentric. And at worst, e.g. during the 1983 election, it was so poor that the media had had trouble finding clips from speeches to replay on news programmes (partly because they’d demanded that he spoke from scripts that were the same as the press releases) – for more on which, see my blogpost earlier today at http://bit.ly/caWKDa (and/or my book ‘Our Masters’ Voices: the Language & Body Language of Politics’, 1984, pp. 143-151).
I disagree. His oratory was first class (though I accept that’s my own opinion which others don’t have to subscribe to), and particularly his unscripted speeches in the Commons; he was very much suited to that environment. The issue, as you rightly state on your own blog, was that he wasn’t at all media savvy. He was an old-style politician at the dawn of the professional, media driven ’soundbite’ politics we know today.
I was initially surprised we were in disagreement – until I re-read my comment an realised that I’d missed a crucial word out of my first sentence, which should have read ‘Michael Foot’s oratory was by no means ALWAYS as good as it was cracked up to be.’
And you’re dead right about him not being ‘media savvy’. I remember Austin Mitchell, then better known as a TV presenter than as a Labour MP, saying that he’d offered his advice, coaching, etc. to the Foot campaign team in 1983, only to be told to “get lost” – though Austin reported the rebuff in rather stronger language than that!
Hope posting that clarifies it! I remember watching a clip of a TV press conference in the 1983 GE when the ‘Think Positive Vote Positive’ sign fell down mid way through. I don’t think much went right for Labour back then! They were certainly jinxed.
RIP indeed — the last honorable ‘old school’ politician; not interested in looking good, just interested in doing good.
This is definitely the nicest obituary to Michael Foot online, very nicely written. I’m enjoying your blogs but are you planning to keep em coming?
Thanks… yes, I hope to be able to continue posting at least a couple of times a week… I’ve had the bug currently going round my neighbourhood (on top of my other health woes!) these last few days so haven’t really felt up to it! Be patient… there may be another post very soon ;o)