Foot notes

MICHAEL FOOT was the brilliant left-wing crusader, unequalled in his day as a parliamentarian, who in 1983 led his beloved Labour Party to its worst electoral humiliation.

This cruel epitaph is sadly how Foot will be remembered above all else. For he was a politician who was far more at home on the backbenches, freely dispensing sophisticated argument and debate, than as a frontbench man hemmed around by official policy lines to which he was compelled to adhere.

Wherever else his talents lay – and they were plentiful – leadership was certainly never his strong suit. By the time he was elected leader, he was already perceived by many as a illgroomed figure, limping along with a walking stick and a dog at his heels.

His appearance as an old man epitomised the lumbering nature of the old Labour Party. It became a major issue when, in 1981, he laid a wreath at the Cenotaph ceremony wearing what his critics denounced as an old donkey jacket. Even his own backbenchers accused him of looking like ‘‘an out-of-work Irish navvy’’ – although he always denied that the coat was a donkey jacket, claiming that it was merely a short overcoat. It was actually admired by the Queen Mother when she met him after the Cenotaph ceremony.

But it earned him the derogatory nickname, Wurzel Gummidge and cost him half-a-million votes. More than any political issue, more than a manifesto dubbed “the longest suicide note in history”, it was the coat that was responsible for Labour’s election calamity.

Michael Foot was born on July 23, 1913, in Plymouth – into the most famous of West Country Liberal families. His father, Isaac, was a Liberal MP who served in Ramsay MacDonald’s National Government.

On leaving Oxford University, Foot was convinced that socialism, and not his father’s liberalism, was the answer to the widespread poverty and unemployment of the period.

He fought the no-hope seat of Monmouth for Labour in 1935 and, two years later, became assistant editor of the left-wing journal Tribune, which he was later to edit. In 1942, he became editor of the London Evening Standard, but left after two years to begin a 20-year stint as political columnist on the Labour-sympathetic newspaper, the Daily Herald.

It was in 1945, in Plymouth, that he achieved Parliamentary success – as MP for Devonport division. His mother sent him a homemade Cornish pasty to celebrate, and to heal the rift that had opened between the Liberal parents and the firebrand son.

During the campaign he met Jill Craigie, who was making a film in Plymouth. They later married, although, to his regret, they were unable to have children. She died in 1999.

In Parliament, he became a fiery spokesman of the Bevanite left, advocating nationalisation, disengagement from the Cold War and alliance with the US, non-participation in Europe and, above all, nuclear disarmament.

His opposition to nuclear defence played a leading part in his 100-vote defeat in the dockyard constituency of Devonport in 1955. And when unilateralism was finally a Labour policy plank, under his leadership, it was to contribute to the party’s thrashing at the polls.

His anti-nuclear views also led to the one major argument between him and his hero, Nye Bevan. Their friendship survived; Foot succeeded him in his Ebbw Vale constituency in 1960, and he wrote Bevan’s biography, considered to be his greatest literary achievement.

Not until 1970, after Labour’s General Election defeat, did Foot agree to become a frontbencher.

From then, his rise was unstoppable.

In Opposition, he was spokesman on the Common Market, against which he campaigned tirelessly. In government, he received the key post of employment secretary under Harold Wilson. His task was to end the miners’ strike, repeal the hated Industrial Relations Act and give greater rights and freedoms to trade unions.

On Mr Wilson’s resignation, he came second to James Callaghan in the leadership battle, although he always gave the impression of being a reluctant contender. He was thrust further into the limelight as deputy prime minister, but seemed to hanker after the freedom of the backbenches.

With Labour’s majority ever more slender, his speech in the confidence debate in 1979 – unlike many of his ministerial utterances – was regarded as one of the finest modern parliamentary performances, even though Labour lost the vote and was forced to call an election.

Foot again hesitated before challenging for the leadership in 1980, but typically, ‘‘he could not decently refuse’’ pressure on him to stand from his many political friends and trade unionists, the excuse used by all ‘‘reluctant’’ potential leaders.

He won, but by only a narrow margin, and afterwards critics claimed that his opponent, Denis Healey, would have given the party a better chance against Margaret Thatcher.

Foot faced monumental problems, such as the defection of the ‘‘Gang of Four’’ to form the SDP and a host of splits on policy, which made leadership virtually impossible.

For many, Foot was never a serious potential prime minister. He gave the impression he would have been happier on the backbenches where he excelled. He delivered fascinating speeches full of wit and logic, playing to the left-wing gallery, and, invariably, to a full House. As a cabinet minister, although effective and generous, he often looked ill at ease.

After the enormous 100-seat General Election defeat in 1983, he was replaced by Neil Kinnock.

He refused a life peerage and a seat in the House of Lords, which meant he effectively bowed out of political life.

Then, in 1995, he was the subject of a bizarre, even laughable, allegation in The Sunday Times that he was a KGB agent. He fiercely denied it and issued libel writs.

Foot was never a hard-nosed politician, although he delivered his trenchant left-wing views in a fiery and attractive manner. He was revered by young left-wingers as the only senior Labour figure who could represent their hopes and aspirations.

But he was seen at Westminster as a slightly eccentric intellectual, happiest of all when writing books and walking his dog on Hampstead Heath, his stick in his hand and white hair blowing in the wind.