Goodbye Michael Foot.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Michael Foot at aged 97, the former Labour leader from 1980 to 1983, yesterday morning. He is often remembered as the eccentric looking, shock white unkempt haired, nutty donnish duffer looking man whose leadership of Labour, brought about one of the most crushing defeats for that party of all time. the Labour manifesto under his leadership was considered so damaging, it was referred to as the "longest suicide note in history." Then there is the incident of when he supposedly wore a donkey jacket (actually an expensive overcoat that the Queen Mother complimented him on) to lay a reef at the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday for which he was pilloried mercilessly by the press, as an out of touch socialist buffoon. But I think to remember him for just these things is really not to do; perhaps one of the cleverest men to sit in the commons, justice.








He never really had a chance at being prime minister. Thatcher was at her most powerful -before '83, from the successful outcome of the Falklands war. Foot, even leaving this aside;- couldn't compete in the TV age, physical appearances had started to matter by this time (he looked 90, 30 years back.) He was perhaps the greatest parliamentarian of the last 35 years, possibly 40, but this was a debating style obsolete by then. It's kind of ironic that he was too good a speaker, half the population probably couldn't understand a bloody thing he was talking about. Not going to win you elections any time soon. His Methodist upbringing, alongside his extraordinary broad literary knowledge, and 19th century socialist rhetoric (his dog was even called Disraeli) just didn't have the capacity to spread his popularity to the masses.





Despite what you may have thought about his trenchant socialist views, or his staunch opposal of the nuclear deterrent, it is unarguable that he spoke with such conviction and passion about issues close to his heart. I would challenge anyone to not be moved by the various anti - nuclear speeches he made. Though he wouldn't budge on nukes, he always defended the Falklands conflict as defending the islanders from the unpleasant Galtieri junta. Almost everyone who knew him said that he was one of the nicest men in politics, and the nicest person ever to lead a political party in the UK. (self admittedly a rare virtue in politics.) Although he held a lot of responsibility for the Labour rebels splitting to form the SDP, it is testament to his character that he could manage to keep the various factions (Bennites and Healeyites) together in a hollowed out party, when it seemed that the internal fractures and the sudden loss of the liberal arm of Labour should have condemned the party to oblivion.

It is unfair then to say Michael Foot was a disaster for the Labour Party. Yes he had some iffy economic views, and looked like so old, that he could have gone to school with the Flintstones, and really had lost the election before it was even called. He was in one sense a success. Few would have been able to keep Labour, even slightly together in the early 80's but somehow Michael Foot succeeded in this and that is no small achievement. At the very least it should earn him a more suitable epitaph than "that old guy who wore a donkey jacket at the cenotaph."