We owe a huge debt

Published: 11 March 2010

• WILLIAM Hazlitt wrote that “it is hard for anyone to become an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.” 
Politicians don’t come much more honest than Michael Foot. He was a lifelong dissenter and his unwavering loyalty to the Labour Party was a demonstration that dissent and loyalty are by no means irreconcilable. Labour has always been the party of rebels, radicals and dissenters. Foot was foremost among these.
He lived to see a number of the policies set out in his 1983 manifesto implemented by Labour since 1997.  The minimum wage, a ban on foxhunting, tighter control over the banks, and what we now call Sure Start are all envisaged within it.
In his 1980 work Debts of Honour, he paid tribute to his radical heroes such as Hazlitt, Jonathan Swift and Benjamin Disraeli.  Michael Foot is worthy of being ranked alongside all of these, and all of us in the Labour Party owe him a huge debt of honour.
TOM COPLEY
Birchington Road, NW6