Michael Foot
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2008-07-16T17:31:45Z
DuncanHill
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Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/79.73.76.100|79.73.76.100]] ([[User talk:79.73.76.100|talk]]) to last version by Bigdaddy1981
{{otherpeople|Michael Foot}}
{{Infobox Politician
| honorific-prefix = <small>[[The Right Honourable]]</small><br>
| name = Michael Foot
| image=Michael Foot.jpg
| imagesize=150px
| birth_date ={{birth date and age|1913|07|23|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Plymouth]], [[Devon]], [[England]]
| office = [[Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom)|Leader of the Opposition]]
| term_start = [[4 November]] [[1980]]
| term_end = [[2 October]], [[1983]]
| predecessor = [[James Callaghan]]
| successor = [[Neil Kinnock]]
| office2 = [[Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party|Deputy Leader of the Labour Party]]
| term_start2 = [[5 April]] [[1976]]
| term_end2 = [[4 November]], [[1980]]
| predecessor2 = [[Edward Short, Baron Glenamara|Edward Short]]
| successor2 = [[Denis Healey]]
| office3 = [[Leader of the House of Commons]] and [[Lord President of the Council]]
| term_start3 = [[8 April]] [[1976]]
| term_end3 = [[4 May]], [[1979]]
| primeminister3 = [[James Callaghan]]
| predecessor3 = [[Edward Short, Baron Glenamara|Edward Short]]
| successor3 = [[Christopher Soames, Baron Soames|Christopher Soames]] (Lord President)<Br>[[Norman St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley|Norman St John-Stevas]] (Leader)
| office4 = [[Secretary of State for Employment]]
| term_start4 = [[5 March]] [[1974]]
| term_end4 = [[8 April]], [[1976]]
| primeminister4 = [[Harold Wilson]]
| predecessor4 = [[William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw|William Whitelaw]]
| successor4 = [[Albert Booth]]
| party = [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]]
}}
'''Michael Mackintosh Foot''' (born [[23 July]] [[1913]]) is a [[British people|British]] politician and writer. He was leader of the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] from [[1980]] to [[1983]].
==Family==
Foot's father, [[Isaac Foot]], was a [[solicitor]] and founder of the Plymouth law firm, Foot and Bowden. [[Isaac Foot]] was an active member of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] and was Liberal [[Member of Parliament]] for [[Bodmin (UK Parliament constituency)|Bodmin]] in [[Cornwall]] [[1922]]–[[1924]] and [[1929]]–[[1935]] and a [[Lord Mayor]] of Plymouth.<ref name=DLB> {{cite book
|last=Foot|first=John|editor=Duncan Brack|others=Malcolm Baines, Katie Hall, Graham Lippiatt, Tony Little, Mark Pack, Geoffrey Sell, Jen Tankard|title=Dictionary of Liberal Biography|origyear=1998|edition=1st ed.|publisher=Politico's Publishing|location=Artillery Row, London|isbn=1902301099|pages=pp. 109-112|chapter=Isaac Foot|}}</ref>
Michael Foot is the younger brother of the late [[Dingle Foot|Sir Dingle Foot]] MP, and also of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] politician [[John Foot, Baron Foot|Lord Foot]] (previously John Foot), and of the late [[Hugh Foot, Baron Caradon|Lord Caradon]] (previously Hugh Foot), a Governor of [[Cyprus]] and a former representative of the [[United Kingdom]] at the [[United Nations]] from [[1964]]-[[1970]], whose late son was the campaigning journalist [[Paul Foot]].
==Early life==
Michael Foot was born in [[Plymouth]], [[Devon]], and educated at [[Plymouth College|Plymouth College Preparatory School]] and [[Leighton Park School]] in [[Reading, Berkshire|Reading]]. He then went on to read [[Philosophy, Politics and Economics]] at [[Wadham College, Oxford]]. Foot was president of the [[Oxford Union]]. He also took part in the [[ESU USA Tour]] (the debating tour of the USA run by the [[English-Speaking Union]]. On graduating in 1934, he took a job as a shipping clerk in [[Liverpool]]. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, on a different scale from anything he had seen in Plymouth. A Liberal up to this time, Foot was converted to [[Socialism]] by [[Oxford University Labour Club]] president [[David Lewis (politician)#Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford|David Lewis]] and others: "... I knew him [at Oxford] when I was a Liberal [and Lewis] played a part in converting me to socialism." <ref> {{cite book
| last = Smith
| first = Cameron
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| title = Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family
| publisher = Summerhill Press
| date = [[1989]]
| location = [[Toronto]]
| pages = pp.161-162
| url =
| doi =
| id =
| isbn = 0-929091-04-3 }} Foot in an interview with the author in 1985</ref> Foot joined the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] and first stood for parliament at the age of 22 in the [[United Kingdom general election, 1935|1935 general election]] when he contested [[Monmouth (UK Parliament constituency)|Monmouth]]. During this election Foot criticised the Prime Minister, [[Stanley Baldwin]], for seeking rearmament. In his election address Foot contended that "the armaments race in Europe must be stopped now".<ref>Mervyn Jones, ''Michael Foot'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994), p. 43.</ref> Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933.<ref>Ibid, p. 30.</ref>
He became a journalist, working briefly on the ''[[New Statesman]]'' before joining the left-wing weekly ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' when it was set up in early 1937 to support the [[Unity Campaign]], an attempt to secure an [[anti-fascist]] [[United Front]] between Labour and the parties to its left. The campaign's members were [[Stafford Cripps]]'s (Labour-affiliated) [[Socialist League (UK, 1932)|Socialist League]], the [[Independent Labour Party]] and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CP). Foot resigned in 1938 after the paper's first editor, [[William Mellor]], was fired for refusing to adopt a new CP policy of backing a [[Popular Front]], including non-socialist parties, against [[fascism]] and [[appeasement]].
==Journalist==
On the recommendation of [[Aneurin Bevan]], Foot was soon hired by [[Lord Beaverbrook]] to work as a writer on his ''[[Evening Standard]]''. (Bevan is supposed to have told Beaverbrook on the phone: "I've got a young bloody knight-errant here. They sacked his boss, so he resigned. Have a look at him.") At the outbreak of the second world war, Foot volunteered for military service, but was rejected due to his chronic asthma. In 1940, under the pen-name "Cato" he and two other Beaverbrook journalists ([[Frank Owen (politician)|Frank Owen]], editor of the ''Standard'', and [[Peter Howard (journalist)|Peter Howard]] of the ''Daily Express'') published ''[[Guilty Men]]'', a [[Left Book Club]] book attacking the [[appeasement]] policy of the [[Neville Chamberlain|Chamberlain]] government that became a run-away best-seller.
Beaverbrook made Foot editor of the ''[[Evening Standard]]'' in 1942 at the age of 28. Foot left in 1945 to join the [[Daily Herald]], then jointly owned by the [[TUC]] and [[Odhams Press]] and effectively an official Labour Party paper, as a columnist, and to fight [[Plymouth Devonport (UK Parliament constituency)|Plymouth Devonport]] in the [[United Kingdom general election, 1945|1945 general election]]. He won the seat for Labour for the first time, holding it until his surprise defeat by [[Dame Joan Vickers]] at the [[United Kingdom general election, 1955|1955 general election]]. He rejoined ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' as editor from 1948 to 1952, and was again the paper's editor from 1955 to 1960. Until 1957, he was the most prominent ally of [[Aneurin Bevan]], who had taken Cripps's place as leader of the Labour left, though Foot and Bevan fell out after Bevan renounced [[unilateral nuclear disarmament]] at the 1957 Labour Party conference.
==Member of Parliament==
Before the cold war began in the late 1940s, Foot favoured a 'third way' foreign policy for Europe (he was joint author with [[Richard Crossman]] and [[Ian Mikardo]] of the pamphlet ''[[Keep Left (pamphlet)|Keep Left]]'' in 1947), but in the wake of the communist seizure of power in [[Hungary]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] he and ''Tribune'' took a strongly anti-communist position, eventually embracing [[NATO]].
Foot was however a critic of the west's handling of the [[Korean war]], an opponent of [[Wiederbewaffnung|West German rearmament]] in the early 1950s and a founder member of the [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament]]. Under his editorship, ''Tribune'' opposed both the British government's [[Suez]] adventure and the Soviet crushing of the [[Hungarian revolution]] in 1956. Foot returned to parliament in 1960 at a by-election for [[Ebbw Vale]] in [[Monmouthshire]], left vacant by Bevan's death.
He had the Labour whip withdrawn in March 1961 after rebelling against the Labour leadership over air force estimates. He only returned to the Parliamentary Labour Group in 1963 when Harold Wilson replaced [[Hugh Gaitskell]] as Labour leader.
[[Harold Wilson]] – the subject of an enthusiastic campaign biography by Foot published by [[Robert Maxwell]]'s Pergamon Press in 1964 – offered Foot a place in his first government, but Foot turned it down. Instead he became the leader of Labour's left opposition from the back benches, dazzling the Commons with his command of rhetoric. He opposed the government's moves to restrict immigration, join the [[Common Market]] and reform the trade unions, was against the [[Vietnam war]] and [[Rhodesia]]'s unilateral declaration of independence, and denounced the Soviet suppression of "socialism with a human face" in [[Czechoslovakia]] in 1968. He also famously allied with the Tory right-winger [[Enoch Powell]] to scupper the government's plan to abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers and create a House of Lords comprising only life peers – a "seraglio of eunuchs" as Foot put it.
In 1967, Foot challenged [[James Callaghan]] but failed to win the post of [[Treasurer of the Labour Party]].
===In government===
After 1970 Labour moved to the left and Wilson came to an accommodation with Foot. In April 1972, he stood for the [[Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party|Deputy Leadership]] of the party, along with [[Edward Short]] and [[Anthony Crosland]], who was eliminated in the first ballot. Short defeated Foot in the second ballot though.
When Labour returned to office in March [[1974]] under Harold Wilson, Foot became Secretary of State for Employment, in which role he played the major part in the government's efforts to keep the trade unions on side. He was also responsible for the [[Health and Safety at Work Act]]. Foot was one of the mainstays of the "no" campaign in the [[United Kingdom referendum, 1975|1975 referendum]] on British membership of the [[European Economic Community]]. When Wilson retired in 1976, Foot [[Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 1976|contested the party leadership]], leading in the first ballot, but was ultimately defeated by [[James Callaghan]]. Later that year he was elected deputy leader and served as [[Leader of the House of Commons]], which gave him the unenviable task of trying to maintain the survival of the Callaghan government as its majority evaporated.
==Labour Leadership==
Following Labour's [[United Kingdom general election, 1979|1979 general election defeat]] by [[Margaret Thatcher]], Foot was elected Labour leader in 1980, beating the right's candidate [[Denis Healey]] in the second round of the leadership election (the last leadership contest to involve only Labour MPs). Foot presented himself as a compromise candidate capable, unlike Healey, of uniting the party, which at the time was riven by the grassroots left-wing insurgency centred on [[Tony Benn]]. The Bennites demanded revenge for the betrayals, as they saw them, of the Callaghan government, and pushed the case for replacement of MPs who had acquiesced in them by left-wingers who would support the causes of unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the Common Market and widespread nationalisation. (Benn did not stand for the leadership: apart from Foot and Healey, the other candidates – both eliminated in the first round – were [[John Silkin]], like Foot a [[Tribunite]], and [[Peter Shore]], an anti-European right-winger.)
When he became leader, Foot was already 67 and frail – and almost immediately after his election as leader was faced with a massive crisis: the creation in early 1981 of a breakaway party by four senior Labour right-wingers, [[Roy Jenkins]], [[Shirley Williams]], [[David Owen]] and [[Bill Rodgers (politician)|William Rodgers]] (the so-called "Gang of Four"), the [[Social Democratic Party (UK)|Social Democratic Party]]. The SDP won the support of large sections of the media, and for more than a year its opinion poll ratings suggested that it could at least overtake Labour and possibly win a general election.
With the Labour left still strong – in 1981 Benn decided to challenge Healey for the deputy leadership of the party, a contest Healey won by the narrowest of margins – Foot struggled to make an impact and was widely criticised for it, though his performances in the Commons, most notably on the [[Falklands war|Falklands crisis of 1982]], won him widespread respect from other parliamentarians. (He was however criticised by some on the left who felt that he should not have supported the [[Thatcher government]]'s immediate resort to military action in defence of 2,000 Falkland islanders' wish to remain British subjects.) The right-wing newspapers nevertheless lambasted him consistently for what they saw as his bohemian eccentricity, attacking him for wearing what they described as a "[[donkey jacket]]" at the wreath-laying ceremony at the [[Cenotaph]] on [[Remembrance Day]].
Through late 1982 and early 1983, there was constant speculation that Labour MPs would replace Foot with Healey as leader – speculation that
increased after Labour lost the 1983 [[Bermondsey by-election, 1983|Bermondsey by-election]], in which the gay rights activist [[Peter Tatchell]] was its candidate – but, critically, Labour held on in a subsequent by-election in Darlington and Foot remained leader for the [[United Kingdom general election, 1983|1983 general election]].
===Resignation===
The 1983 Labour manifesto, strongly [[socialism|socialist]] in tone, advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation and a return to a more interventionist industrial policy. The manifesto also pledged that a Labour government would abolish the House of Lords and leave the EEC. Among the Labour MPs newly-elected in 1983 in support of this manifesto were [[Tony Blair]] and [[Gordon Brown]]. Foot's Labour Party lost to the Conservatives in a landslide. Foot resigned and was succeeded by [[Neil Kinnock]] as leader. [[Gerald Kaufman]], once [[Harold Wilson]]'s press officer and during the 1980s a key player on the Labour right, described the 1983 Labour manifesto as "[[the longest suicide note in history]]".
===Backbenches and Retirement===
Foot took a back seat in Labour politics after 1983 and retired from the House of Commons in 1992 but remained politically active. From 1987 to 1992, he was the oldest sitting British MP (preceding former Prime Minister [[Edward Heath|Sir Edward Heath]]). He defended [[Salman Rushdie]], the novelist who was subject to a [[fatwa]] by [[Ayatollah Khomeini]], and took a strongly pro-interventionist position against [[Slobodan Milošević]] over Croatia and Bosnia.
In 1995, an article in ''[[The Sunday Times (UK)|The Sunday Times]]'', under the headline "[[KGB]]: Michael Foot was our agent", alleged that the Soviet intelligence services regarded Foot as an 'agent of influence', named as 'Agent Boot'. Foot denied he had been any such thing, successfully sued ''The Sunday Times'' and handed over a large part of his damages to ''Tribune''. The article was based on the paper's serialisation of KGB defector [[Oleg Gordievsky]]'s memoirs.
Foot has remained a high-profile member of the [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament]] to this day. He is the author of several books, including highly regarded biographies of [[Aneurin Bevan]] and [[H. G. Wells]]. Indeed, he is a distinguished Vice-president of the [[H. G. Wells Society]]. Many of his friends have said publicly that they regret that he ever gave up literature for politics.
Foot is an Honorary Associate of the [[National Secular Society]] and a Distinguished Supporter of the [[British Humanist Association]].
Though Foot is considered by many a failure as Labour leader, his biographer [[Mervyn Jones]] makes the case that no one else could have held Labour together at the time. Foot is remembered with affection in Westminster as a great parliamentarian. He was widely liked, and admired for his integrity and generosity of spirit, by both his colleagues and opponents.
==Personal life==
Foot was married to the [[film-maker]], [[author]] and [[feminist]] [[historian]] [[Jill Craigie]] from 1949 until her death in 1999.
In 2007, it was revealed that he had had an extramarital affair in the early 1970s which had put a considerable strain on his marriage, not least because he spent a substantial amount of money paying the woman's bills. Craigie's suspicion was said to have been raised when Foot, not known for his sartorial elegance, began taking inordinate care over his appearance. <ref>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1434627.ece Michael Foot had a young black mistress - Times Online<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
In 2003 Foot turned 90. He has been a passionate supporter of [[Plymouth Argyle F.C.]] since childhood, and served for several years as a director of the club. For his 90th birthday present, the club registered him as a player and gave him the shirt number, 90. This made him the oldest registered player in the history of football. He had stated that he would not 'conk out' until he has seen his team play in the Premiership.
As of [[23 July]] [[2006]], his 93rd birthday, Michael Foot became the longest lived leader of a British political party, beating [[James Callaghan|Lord Callaghan]]'s record of 92 years, 364 days.
Foot had always rejected honours from the Queen and the government, including a knighthood and a peerage on more than one occasion.
==In popular culture==
Foot was portrayed by [[Patrick Godfrey]] in the [[2002 in television|2002]] [[BBC]] production of [[Ian Curteis]]'s controversial ''[[The Falklands Play]]''.
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==Bibliography==
*"Cato". Guilty Men. Left Book Club. 1940.
*"Brendan and Beverley" (as "Cassius"). Victor Gollancz. 1940.
*Foot, Michael: ''The Pen and the Sword''. MacGibbon and Kee. 1957. ISBN 0-261-61989-6
*Foot, Michael: ''Aneurin Bevan''. MacGibbon and Kee. 1962 (vol 1); 1973 (vol 2) ISBN 0-261-61508-4
*Foot, Michael: ''Debts of Honour''. Harper and Row. 1981. ISBN 0-06-039001-8
*Foot, Michael: ''Another Heart and Other Pulses''. Collins. 1984.
*Foot, Michael: ''H. G.: The History of Mr Wells''. Doubleday. 1985.
*Foot, Michael: ''Loyalists and Loners.'' Collins. 1986.
*Foot, Michael: ''Politics of Paradise''. HarperCollins. 1989. ISBN 0-06-039091-3
*Foot, Michael: 'Introduction' in Swift, Jonathan. ''Gulliver's Travels''. Penguin (Penguin Classics), 1967 & 1985.
*Foot, Michael: 'Introduction' in Russell, Bertrand: ''Autobiography'' (Routledge, 1998)
*Foot, Michael: ''Dr Strangelove, I Presume'' (Gollancz, 1999)
*Foot, Michael: ''The Uncollected Michael Foot'' (ed Brian Brivati, [[Politicos Publishing]], 2003)
*Foot, Michael: 'Foreword' in Rosen, Greg: ''Old Labour to New'' ([[Methuen Publishing]], 2005)
*Foot, Michael: ''Isaac Foot: A West Country Boy - Apostle of England.'' (Politicos, 2006)
==Biographies==
*Hoggart, Simon; & Leigh, David. ''Michael Foot: a Portrait''. Hodder. 1981. ISBN 0-340-27040-3
*Jones, Mervyn. ''Michael Foot''. Gollancz. 1993. ISBN 0-575-05933-8
*Morgan, Kenneth O. ''Michael Foot: A Life''. HarperPress (HarperCollins) 2007. ISBN 978 0 00 717826 1
==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=26 In-depth biographical interview marking Foot's 90th birthday]
The Labour History Archive and Study Centre hold Michael Foot's archive see: http://www.phm.org.uk/
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{{UK Labour Party Leaders}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foot, Michael}}
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