Michael Foot dies at 96
By vardebedian | Thursday, March 04, 2010, 07:08
Just down the road in Hampstead ex-Labourt leader Michael Foot died yesterday at 96.
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Michael Foot
I am just (just!) old enough to remember the 83 election, at which he led his party to such spectacular defeat on a manifesto that even then alarmed the electorate with its uncompromising socialism and today...well, today it looks like something from another era entirely.
Tributes from across the thin centre-left centre ground that is all that now remains of the British political spectrum have already made the point that he was a man of uncompromising principle; Gordon Brown called him a "genuine radical"; and the BBC reports tributes calling him a "socialist titan". Here's to the passing of the last Labour socialist, a remarkable figure in British politics.
Comments
He was a one-off who never left you in any doubt as to what he believed in and what he stood for, as is shown in this YouTube clip of the first Question Time in 1979 in which he explains why he is against corporal punishment (it's four minutes in): tinyurl.com/y95djg4
By EricGen at 16:21 on 08/03/10
ReportBless him. Not many like him left in politics. Somehow I doubt he would have got caught up in the MPs expenses....Not even for a new donkey jacket
By coopslad at 16:58 on 04/03/10
ReportOne does still (occasionally) find a man or woman of principle in politics, but I think Foot may just be the last of a breed that comprehensively represented any sort of ideal. Whatever one thinks of the "suicide note" manifesto of 1983, Parliament has been a poorer place without his passion, his erudition, and his commitment to a solid set of ideals rather than fairweather political fashions. His passing will indeed be mourned by many on all sides.
By LiseS at 07:39 on 04/03/10
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