Michael Foot

FRSL
Foot in 1981
Leader of the Opposition
In office 10 November 1980 – 2 October 1983
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Deputy	Denis Healey
Preceded by	James Callaghan
Succeeded by	Neil Kinnock
Leader of the Labour Party
In office 10 November 1980 – 2 October 1983
Deputy	Denis Healey
Preceded by	James Callaghan
Succeeded by	Neil Kinnock
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
In office 5 April 1976 – 10 November 1980
Leader	James Callaghan
Preceded by	Edward Short
Succeeded by	Denis Healey
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
In office 4 May 1979 – 10 November 1980
Leader	James Callaghan
Preceded by	Norman St John-Stevas
Succeeded by	John Silkin
Ministerial offices William Whitelaw Succeeded by Albert Booth
Parliamentary offices Joan Vickers
Personal details
Born	Michael Mackintosh Foot (1913-07-23)23 July 1913 Hampstead, London, England
Resting place	Golders Green Crematorium, London
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Jill Craigie ​ ​ (m. 1949; died 1999)​
Parent	Isaac Foot (father)
Relatives	Sir Dingle Foot (brother) The Lord Caradon (brother) The Lord Foot (brother) Paul Foot (nephew) Sarah Foot (niece) Oliver Foot (nephew)
Education	Plymouth College Forres School Leighton Park School
Alma mater	Wadham College, Oxford
Signature

Michael Mackintosh Foot

Elected as a compromise candidate, Foot served as Labour leader, and Leader of the Opposition, from 1980 to 1983.^[1] His strongly left-wing political positions and criticisms of his vacillating leadership made him an unpopular leader. Not particularly telegenic, he was nicknamed "Worzel Gummidge" for his rumpled appearance.^[2][3][4] A faction of the party broke away in 1981 to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Foot led Labour into the 1983 general election, when the party obtained its lowest share of the vote in 65 years and the fewest parliamentary seats since 1935, which remained the case until Labour's defeat at the 2019 general election.^[5] He resigned the party leadership following the election, and was succeeded as leader by Neil Kinnock.

Books authored by Michael Foot include Guilty Men (1940); The Pen and the Sword (1957), a biography of Jonathan Swift; and a biography of Aneurin Bevan.

Family

Foot was born in Lipson Terrace,

Upon graduating with a second-class degree in 1934,[12] he took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, which was 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, a Canadian Rhodes scholar, and others: " I knew him [at Oxford] when I was a Liberal [and Lewis] played a part in converting me to socialism."^[13]

Foot joined the Labour Party and first stood for parliament, aged 22, at the 1935 general election, where he contested Monmouth. During the 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".^[14] Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933.^[15]

Foot became a journalist, working briefly on the

He was an avid anti-imperialist and was heavily involved in

Krishna Menon.^[18] The India League was the premier UK-based organisation that fought for the 'Liberation of India'.^[19] After Indian independence in 1947, Foot's interest in India continued, and he became Chair of the India League.^[20]

Journalism

On the recommendation of

Second World War, Foot volunteered for military service, but was rejected because of his chronic asthma. It was suggested in 2009 that he was a member of the secret Auxiliary Units.^[21]

In 1940, under the pen-name "Cato" he and two other Beaverbrook journalists (

British re-armament under the National Governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, and Neville Chamberlain; it became a runaway bestseller. (In so doing, Foot reversed his position of the 1935 election – when he had attacked the Conservatives as militaristic and demanded disarmament in the face of Nazi Germany.) Beaverbrook made Foot editor of the Evening Standard in 1942, when he was aged 28. During the war, Foot made a speech that was later featured in the documentary TV series The World at War broadcast in February 1974.^[22] Foot was speaking in defence of the Daily Mirror, which had criticised the conduct of the war by the Churchill government. He mocked the notion that the Government would make no more territorial demands

of other newspapers if they allowed the Mirror to be censored.

Foot left the Standard in 1945 to join the

Daily Herald as a columnist. The Daily Herald was jointly owned by the Trades Union Congress and Odhams Press, and was effectively an official Labour Party paper. He rejoined Tribune

as editor from 1948 to 1952, and was again the paper's editor from 1955 to 1960. Throughout his political career he railed against the increasing corporate domination of the press.

Member of Parliament

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Foot fought the

unilateral nuclear disarmament

at the 1957 Labour Party conference.

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 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 West German rearmament in the early 1950s and a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1957. Under his editorship, Tribune opposed both the British government's Suez campaign and the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. During this period, he made regular television appearances on the current-affairs programmes In The News (BBC Television) and subsequently Free Speech (ITV). "There was certainly nothing wrong with his television technique in those days," reflected Anthony Howard shortly after Foot's death.^[24]

Foot returned to parliament at a by-election in Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, in 1960, the seat having been left vacant by Bevan's death. He had the Labour whip withdrawn in March 1961 after rebelling against the Labour leadership over Royal Air Force estimates. He only returned to the Parliamentary Labour Group in 1963, when Harold Wilson became Leader of the Labour Party after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell.

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 becoming the leader of Labour's left opposition from the back benches. He opposed the government's moves to restrict immigration, join the European Communities (or "Common Market" as they were referred to) 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.^[25]

Foot challenged James Callaghan for the post of Treasurer of the Labour Party in 1967, but failed.

In government

After 1970, Labour moved to the left and Wilson came to an accommodation with Foot. Foot served in the

In 1975, Foot, along with Jennie Lee and others, courted controversy when they supported Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, after she prompted the declaration of a state of emergency. In December 1975, The Times ran an editorial titled 'Is Mr Foot a Fascist?' — their answer was that he was —^[29] after Norman Tebbit accused him of 'undiluted fascism' when Foot said that the Ferrybridge Six deserved dismissal for defying a closed shop.^[30]

Labour leadership

Following Labour's 1979 general election defeat by Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan remained as party leader for the next 18 months before he resigned. Foot was elected Labour leader on 10 November 1980, beating 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,^[31] which at the time was riven by the grassroots left-wing insurgency centred around Tony Benn.

The Bennites were demanding revenge for what they considered to be the betrayals of the

As Steve Richards notes in 1980 Healey, not Foot, was widely expected by the media and many political figures to be the next Labour leader.^[32] However, he notes that while "Healey was widely seen as the obvious successor to Callaghan", and that sections of the media ultimately reacted with "disbelief" at Labour not choosing him, the "choice of Foot was not as perverse as it seemed". He argues Labour MPs were looking for a figure from the left who could unite the wider party with the leadership, which Healey could not do. Richards states that despite being on the left of the party Foot was not a "tribal politician" and had proved he could work with those of different ideologies and had been a loyal deputy to Callaghan. Thus Foot "was seen as the unity candidate" and won the election.^[33]

When he became leader, Foot was already 67 years old – and frail. Following the

Almost immediately following his election as leader, he was faced with a serious crisis. On 25 January 1981, four senior politicians on the right-wing of the Labour Party (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers, the so-called "Gang of Four") left Labour and formed the Social Democratic Party, which was launched on 26 March 1981. This was largely seen as the consequence of the Labour Party's swing to the left, polarising divisions in an already divided party.^[34]

The SDP won the support of large sections of the

The Labour left was still strong. In 1981, Benn decided to challenge Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party, a contest Healey won, albeit narrowly. Foot struggled to make an impact, and was widely criticised for his ineffectiveness, though his performances in the Commons – most notably on the Falklands War of 1982 – won him widespread respect from other parliamentarians. He was criticised by some on the left for supporting Thatcher's immediate resort to military action. 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" (actually he wore a type of duffel coat)^[35] at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day in November 1981, for which he was likened to an "out-of-work navvy" by a fellow Labour MP.^[36] Foot did not make it generally known that the Queen Mother had described it as a "sensible coat for a day like this",^[37] which could be considered a slight or a compliment depending on whether irony was intended. He later donated the coat to the People's History Museum in Manchester,^[38][39] which holds a collection that spans Foot's entire political career from 1938 to 1990, and his personal papers dating back to 1926.^[40]

The formation of the SDP – which formed an alliance with the Liberal Party in June 1981 – contributed to a fall in Labour support. The double-digit lead that had still been intact in opinion polls at the start of 1981 was swiftly wiped out, and by the end of October the opinion polls were showing the Alliance ahead of Labour. Labour briefly regained their lead of most opinion polls in early 1982, but when the Falklands conflict ended on 14 June 1982 with a British victory over Argentina, opinion polls showed the Conservatives firmly in the lead. Their position at the top of the polls was strengthened by the return to economic growth later in the year. It was looking certain that the Conservatives would be re-elected, and the only key issue that the media were still speculating by the end of 1982 was whether it would be Labour or the Alliance who formed the next opposition.^[41]

Through late 1982 and early 1983, there was constant speculation that Labour MPs would replace Foot with Healey as leader. Such speculation increased after Labour lost the

The 1983 Labour manifesto, strongly

As a statement on internal democracy, Foot passed the edict that the manifesto would consist of all resolutions arrived at conference. The party also failed to master the medium of television, while Foot addressed public meetings around the country, and made some radio broadcasts, in the same manner as Clement Attlee did in 1945.

The

The Labour Party, led by Foot, lost to the Conservatives in a landslide – a result that had been widely predicted by the opinion polls since the previous summer. The only consolation for Foot and Labour was that they did not lose their place in opposition to the SDP–Liberal Alliance, who came close to them in terms of votes but were still a long way behind in terms of seats.^[44] Despite this, Foot was very critical of the Alliance, accusing them of "siphoning" Labour support and enabling the Tories to win more seats.^[45]

Foot resigned days following the bitter election defeat, and was succeeded as leader on 2 October by Neil Kinnock; who had been tipped from the outset to be Labour's choice of new leader.

Backbenches and retirement

Foot took a back seat in Labour politics following 1983 and retired from the House of Commons at the

fatwā, and took a strongly pro-interventionist position against Serbia and Montenegro during the Yugoslav Wars, supporting NATO forces whilst citing defence of civilian populations in Croatia and Bosnia. In addition, he was among the Patrons of the British-Croatian Society.^[46] The Guardian's political editor Michael White criticised Foot's "overgenerous" support for Croatian President Franjo Tuđman.^[47]

Foot remained a high-profile member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He wrote several books, including highly regarded biographies of Aneurin Bevan and H. G. Wells. Indeed, he was 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.

Michael Foot became a supporter of pro-Europeanism in the 1990s.^[48]

Foot was an Honorary Associate of the

British Humanist Association.^[49] In 1988, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^{[citation needed}

]

In a poll of Labour Party activists in 2008, he was voted the worst post-war Labour Party leader.[50] Though Foot is considered by many right-wingers to be a failure as Labour leader, his biographer Mervyn Jones strongly makes the case that no one else could have held Labour together at the time, particularly in the face of the controversy over the infiltration of the party by Militant.^{[citation needed]} Foot is remembered with affection in Westminster as a great parliamentarian. He was widely liked, and admired for his integrity, habitual courtesy, and generosity of spirit, by both his colleagues and opponents.^{[citation needed]}

A portrait of Foot by the artist Robert Lenkiewicz now permanently hangs in Portcullis House, Westminster.

Gordievsky's KGB allegations

defected from the Soviet Union to the UK in 1985, made allegations against Foot in his 1995 memoirs.^[51] Essentially, the allegations claimed that, up until 1968, Foot had spoken to KGB agents "dozens of times", passing information about politics and the trade unions, and Foot had been paid a total of around £1,500 for his information (said to be worth £37,000 in 2018).^[52] The Sunday Times, which serialised Gordievsky's book under the headline "KGB: Michael Foot was our agent", stated in an article of 19 February that the Soviet intelligence services regarded Foot as an "agent of influence" (and a "useful idiot"), codenamed "Agent BOOT", and that he was in the pay of the KGB for many years. Crucially, the newspaper used material from the original manuscript of the book that mentioned Foot by name, something excluded from the published book.^[53]

At the time a leading article in The Independent newspaper asserted: "It seems extraordinary that such an unreliable figure should now be allowed, given the lack of supporting evidence, to damage the reputation of figures such as Mr Foot."^[54] In a February 1992 interview, Gordievsky declared that he had no further revelations to make about the Labour Party.^[54] Foot successfully sued the Sunday Times, winning "substantial" damages.^[53]

Following Foot's death, Charles Moore writing in The Daily Telegraph in 2010 gave an account that he said had been provided to him by Gordievsky, containing additional uncorroborated information concerning his allegations. Moore said there was no evidence to show that Foot gave away state secrets.^[55]

Plymouth Argyle

Foot was a passionate supporter of

Plymouth Argyle Football Club from his childhood and once remarked that he was not going to die until he had seen them play in the Premier League.^[56]

He served for several years as a director of the club, seeing two promotions under his tenure.[57]

For his 90th birthday, Foot was registered with the

Football League as an honorary player and given the shirt number 90. This made him the oldest registered professional player in the history of football.^[57][58]

Personal life

Foot was married to the film-maker, author and feminist historian Jill Craigie (1911–1999) from 1949 until her death fifty years later. He had no children.^[59]

In February 2007, it was revealed that Foot had an

extramarital affair with a woman around 35 years his junior in the early 1970s. The affair, which lasted nearly a year, put a considerable strain on his marriage. The affair is detailed in Foot's official biography, published in March 2007.^[60]

On 23 July 2006, his 93rd birthday, Michael Foot became the longest-lived leader of a major British political party, passing

Lord Callaghan

's record of 92 years, 364 days.

A staunch

knighthood and a peerage

, on more than one occasion.

He was also an

atheist. As of June 2021^[update], he was one of four leaders of the Labour Party to declare that they did not follow any religion.^[61][62]

Health

Foot suffered from

eczema.^[63]

In October 1963, he was involved in a car crash, suffering pierced lungs, broken ribs, and a broken left leg. Foot used a

chain-smoker, but he gave up the habit thereafter.^[64] Jill Craigie

also suffered a crushed hand in this car crash.

In October 1976, Foot became blind in one eye following an attack of shingles.^[65]

Death

Foot died at his

congestive heart failure. The House of Commons was informed of the news later that day by Justice Secretary Jack Straw,^[66] who told the House: "I am sure that this news will be received with great sadness not only in my own party but across the country as a whole."^[67] Foot's funeral was a non-religious service, held on 15 March 2010 at Golders Green Crematorium in North-West London.^[68]

In popular culture

"Foot Heads Arms Body"

On 22 June 1978,

The Times Digital Archive, which includes every day's newspaper from 1785 into the 21st century.^[72] In 2018, John Rentoul included this headline in his "The Top 10: Headlines", subtitled "Clever and memorable plays on words that have made journalistic history".^[73]

Fictional portrayals

Foot was portrayed by Patrick Godfrey in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's long unproduced The Falklands Play and by Michael Pennington in the film The Iron Lady.^[74][75]

Bibliography

• Cato (pen name), Guilty Men, Left Book Club (1940); by Foot, Peter Howard, and Frank Owen
• Cassius (pen name), Brendan and Beverley, Victor Gollancz (1940)
• Cassius (pen name), The Trial of Mussolini: Being a Verbatim Report of the First Great Trial for War Criminals Held in London Sometime in 1944 or 1945, Victor Gollancz (1943)
• The Pen and the Sword, MacGibbon and Kee (1957)
  LCCN 70--38605
• Guilty Men, 1957, by Foot and Mervyn Jones, Gollancz (1957); US title, Guilty Men, 1957: Suez & Cyprus
  LCCN 57--10197
• Aneurin Bevan, MacGibbon and Kee (volume 1:1962) (volume 2:1973)
  ISBN 0-261-61508-4
• Debts of Honour, Harper and Row (1981)
  ISBN 0-06-039001-8
• Another Heart and Other Pulses, Collins (1984)
  ISBN 978-0-00-217256-1
  .
• H. G.: The History of Mr Wells, Doubleday (1985)
  ISBN 978-1-887178-04-4
• Loyalists and Loners, Collins (1986)
  ISBN 978-0-00-217583-8
• Politics of Paradise, HarperCollins (1989)
  ISBN 0-06-039091-3
• "Introduction" in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Penguin (1967)
• ' "Bevan's Message to the World" ' in Geoffrey Goodman, ed., The State of the Nation: The Political Legacy of Aneurin Bevan, Gollancz (1997)
• "Introduction" in Bertrand Russell's Autobiography, Routledge (1998)
• Dr Strangelove, I Presume, Gollancz (1999)
• The Uncollected Michael Foot, by Foot and editor
  ISBN 978-1-84275-096-4
• "Foreword" in Greg Rosen's Old Labour to New,
  ISBN 978-1-84275-045-2
• Isaac Foot: A West Country Boy – Apostle of England, Politicos Publishing (2006)
  ISBN 978-1-84275-181-7

Footnotes

1. ^ "1980: Michael Foot is new Labour leader". BBC News. 10 November 1980. Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
2. ^ ^{a b} BBC News Archived 29 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine, 3 March 2010, Michael Foot reflects on his infamous jacket
3. ^ ^{a b c} Daily Telegraph Archived 27 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Michael Foot – The best British political insults and putdowns
4. ^ ^{a b} The Independent, 11 April 1994, Book Review / How Worzel came to save the Labour Party: 'Michael Foot' – Mervyn Jones: Victor Gollancz, 20 pounds, by John Torode.
5. ^ Philpot, Robert (4 June 2013). "1983 election: Alliance and skirmish". Total Politics. UK. Archived from the original on 23 March 2014.
6. ^ Harrington, Illytd (28 December 2006). "Extraordinary life of Apostle of England". Camden New Journal. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
7. ^ Moore, Jonathan (3 March 2010). "Obituary: Michael Foot". politics.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 September 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
8. ISBN 978-1-902301-09-9
   .
9. ^ "Oliver Foot". Daily Telegraph. 9 February 2008.
   ISSN 0307-1235. Archived
   from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
10. ^ "An Old Forresian Slips Away" (FSM Michael Foot Tribute), Forres Sandle Manor School, 3 March 2010. Archived 28 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 6 April 2014
11. ISBN 978-0743450256
    .
12. ^ "Michael Foot". The Telegraph. 3 March 2010. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
13. ISBN 978-0-929091-04-4
    . Foot in an interview with the author in 1985.
14. ISBN 978-0-575-05933-7
    .
15. ^ Jones, p. 30.
16. ^ "Labour's Old Romantic: A Film Portrait of Michael Foot", Archived 20 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine (1997). BBC TV. ftvdb.bfi.org.uk Archived 12 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine Alison Cahn (Producer). Anne Tyerman (Series editor). Michael Cockerell (Reporter). Retrieved 5 December 2010.
17. ^ "Michael Foot loved old India, backed the new". Hindustan Times. 5 March 2010.
18. ^ Nasta, Susheila. "Michael Foot". Making Britain. The Open University.
19. OCLC 802321049
    .
20. ^ Sarkar, Smita; Anand Pillai (17 January 2017). "India League in a league of its own". Asian Voice.
21. ^ "QI Series 7 'G', Episode 3 Games". QItransscripts. 10 December 2009. Archived from the original on 10 September 2021. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
22. Internet Movie Database. Archived
    from the original on 5 November 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
23. OCLC 489636152
    .
24. ^ Howard, Anthony (5 March 2010). "Michael Foot: The last of a dying breed". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 8 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
25. ^ PARLIAMENT (No. 2) BILL Archived 9 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine, HC Deb 3 February 1969 vol 777 cc43-171
26. ^ Warden, John (21 April 1972). "Short leads by one vote in first ballot". The Glasgow Herald. p. 1. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
27. ^ Warden, John (26 April 1972). "Unity call as Short wins by 29 votes". The Glasgow Herald. p. 1. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
28. ^ ^{a b} Johnson, Richard (23 July 2021). "The Life and Legacy of Michael Foot". Tribune. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
29. ^ "Is Mr. Foot a Fascist?". The Times. 2 December 1975.
30. ^ The Spectator Volume 237, Part 2. London: F.C. Westley. 1976. p. 12.
31. ^ Crewe, Ivor; King, Anthony (1995). SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 73. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2015.^{[ISBN missing]}
32. ISBN 978-1-83895-241-9
    .
33. ^ Richards (2021). The Prime Ministers We Never Had. pp. 116–119.
34. ^ "1983 general election". BBC News. Archived from the original on 6 April 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
35. ^ Hasan, Mehdi (3 March 2010). "Michael Foot: RIP". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 6 October 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
36. Sunday Telegraph. Archived
    from the original on 23 April 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
37. ^ Kirkup, James (3 March 2010). "Michael Foot and the donkey jacket that wasn't". Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
38. ^ "Ode to the Donkey Jacket". Today. BBC. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
39. ^ "Collection Highlights". People's History Museum. Archived from the original on 20 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
40. ^ "Collection Catalogues and Descriptions". Labour History Archive and Study Centre. Archived from the original on 13 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
41. ^ "Voting Intention in Great Britain: 1976–present". Ipsos MORI. 21 June 2010. Archived from the original on 25 August 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
42. ^ Mann, Nyta (14 July 2003). "Foot's message of hope to left". BBC Online. Archived from the original on 2 September 2017. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
43. ^ Stoddard, Katy (4 May 2010). "Newspaper support in UK general elections". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 1 August 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
44. ^ "1983: Thatcher triumphs again". BBC News. 5 April 2005. Archived from the original on 22 April 2009. Retrieved 10 August 2010.
45. ^ "1983: Thatcher wins landslide victory". On This Day. BBC News. 2008. Archived from the original on 12 June 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
46. ^ "The British Croatian Society Registered Charity No. 1086139 Info and CV's of the members". The British Croatian Society. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
47. ^ White, Michael (18 April 2007). "Michael Foot's lucky life". The Times Literary Supplement. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
48. ^ "The King of Lost Causes". drb.ie. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
49. ^ "BHA mourns Rt Hon Michael Foot, activist, journalist and humanist (1913-2010)". Humanists UK. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
50. ^ Crick, Michael (25 September 2008). "Place That Labour Face". BBC. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
51. ISBN 978-0-333-62086-1
    .
52. ISBN 978-0241972137
53. ^ ^{a b} Williams, Rhys (8 July 1995). "'Sunday Times' pays Foot damages over KGB claim". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
54. ^ ^{a b} "Leading Article: Michael Foot's tainted accuser". The Independent. London. 20 February 1995. Archived from the original on 23 January 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
55. ^ Moore, Charles (5 March 2010). "Was Foot a national treasure or the KGB's useful idiot?". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 23 May 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
56. ^ "I refuse to conk out until I have seen Argyle play in the top division." Foot, Michael (4 March 2010). "Remembering Argyle's greatest ever left-winger". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 6 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
57. ^ ^{a b} "Michael Foot". Plymouth Argyle FC. 3 March 2010. Archived from the original on 23 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
58. ^ "Michael Foot's passion for Plymouth Argyle". BBC News. 3 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
59. ^ ^{a b} "Michael Foot (obituary)". The Daily Telegraph. London. 3 March 2010. Archived from the original on 6 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
60. ^ ^{a b} Brooks, Richard (25 February 2007). "Michael Foot had a young black mistress". The Sunday Times. London. Archived from the original on 27 February 2007. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
61. ^ Williams, Rhiannon (11 April 2021). "Keir Starmer: I may not believe in God, but I do believe in faith". inews.co.uk. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
62. ^ Crawley, William (1 October 2010). "Should we keep God out of politics?". BBC. Archived from the original on 19 June 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
63. ^ Henderson, Mark (4 March 2010). "Michael Foot, Labour Party Leader (obituary)". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 24 May 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
64. ^ Beattie, Jason (4 April 2010). "Michael Foot was the heart and soul of Labour and a giant of the movement – even his enemies will mourn". Daily Mirror. London. Archived from the original on 6 July 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
65. ^ Jones, Mervyn (3 March 2010). "Michael Foot obituary". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 15 March 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
66. ^ "Former Labour leader Michael Foot dies". BBC News. 3 March 2010. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
67. ^ "Michael Foot dies". New Statesman. UK. 3 March 2010. Archived from the original on 6 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
68. ^ Siddique, Haroon (15 March 2010). "Gordon Brown leads mourners at funeral of Michael Foot". The Guardian. agencies. UK. Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
69. ^ "Foot hits back on Nazi comparison". The Guardian. 22 June 1978.
70. ^ Allan, David C. (27 June 1978). "Footnote [letter to the editor]". The Guardian. p. 10.
71. ^ Hoggart, Simon (5 March 2010). "Footnotes to a life well lived". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
72. ^ "The Times Digital Archive". Cengage Learning. 2011. Archived from the original on 30 April 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
73. ^ Rentoul, John (10 December 2018). "Top 10 headlines". The Independent. Archived from the original on 16 February 2024. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
74. ^ "Patrick Godfrey - IMDB". IMDb. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
75. ^ "Michael Pennington - IMDB". IMDb. Retrieved 5 January 2021.

Biographies

• Hoggart, Simon; &
  ISBN 0-340-27040-3
• ISBN 0-575-05933-8
• ISBN 978-0-00-717826-1

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Michael Foot.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Michael Foot.

• Michael Foot at
  IMDb
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Foot
• Michael Foot at 90 Johann Hari, 24 July 2003 – In-depth biographical interview marking Foot's 90th birthday
• Michael Foot (1913–2010) slideshow at The First Post
• "March 3: In 2010" (fictitious obituary) at Today in Alternate History – "what if the Falklands Task Force had been defeated?"
• The Labour History Archive and Study Centre hold Michael Foot's archive at: People's History Museum
• "Michael Foot 1913–2010" at New Statesman – "the last published interview [6 November 2008] with the former Labour leader"
• Works by Michael Foot at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Michael Foot at Library of Congress, with 33 library catalogue records

Media offices
Preceded by Frank Owen	Editor of the Evening Standard 1942–1943	Succeeded by Sydney Elliott
Preceded by Jon Kimche	Editor of Tribune 1948–1952 Served alongside: Evelyn Anderson	Succeeded by Bob Edwards
Preceded by Evelyn Anderson
Preceded by Bob Edwards	Editor of Tribune 1955–1960	Succeeded by Richard Clements
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Leslie Hore-Belisha	Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport 1945–1955	Succeeded by Joan Vickers
Preceded by Aneurin Bevan	Member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale 1960–1983	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Blaenau Gwent 1983–1992	Succeeded by Llew Smith
Political offices
Preceded by William Whitelaw	Secretary of State for Employment 1974–1976	Succeeded by Albert Booth
Preceded by Edward Short	Leader of the House of Commons 1976–1979	Succeeded by Norman St John-Stevas
	Lord President of the Council 1976–1979	Succeeded by The Lord Soames
Preceded by James Callaghan	Leader of the Opposition 1980–1983	Succeeded by Neil Kinnock
Party political offices
Preceded by Edward Short	Deputy Leader of the Labour Party 1976–1980	Succeeded by Denis Healey
Preceded by James Callaghan	Leader of the Labour Party 1980–1983	Succeeded by Neil Kinnock
Honorary titles
Preceded by Robert Edwards	Oldest sitting member of the House of Commons 1987–1992	Succeeded by Edward Heath