A great politician with a socialist conviction

Published: 11 March 2010

• I CANNOT rest in peace unless I can express publicly my highest regards and admiration for Michael Foot.
Not only was he a great politician with strong socialist conviction, but he was a great orator, important historian and literary figure as well.
With all these wonderful qualities, he was never a big-headed, proud man, but could freely mix with ordinary people and talk with them seriously as well as have fun.
I can talk about these qualities from my personal experiences with him, such as our travelling together on the number 24 bus, and our meetings in the Tribune office.
Up until 2008 I used to meet him twice a year on Hiroshima Day August 6 and Gandhi’s birthday (October 2).
Michael Foot was no less an economist and committed himself to control the banks if he became Prime Minister. Had it not been for the Falklands war, he would most likely have become Prime Minister in the 1983 general election – and he surely would not have gone as far as the wholesale marketisation of the economy, as well as the outsourcing of public services.
He was also the most likely to abolish the cut-off point in National Insurance, as the Labour leader John Smith, promised he would do, if he became Prime Minister.
RAMENDRANATH BHATTACHARYYA
Antrim Road
NW3