Can MPs’ memories of great uncle Michael Foot spur Labour on to victory?

Published: 11 March 2010
by TOM FOOT

IS something stirring within the Labour Party?

On Monday night, around 300 MPs and peers from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) packed one of the ornate Commons committee rooms to pay tribute to Michael Foot, my great uncle.

Even Sir Gerald Kaufman, whose enduring “longest suicide note in history” remark has infiltrated almost all of Michael’s obituaries, was there – he shuffled off a little earlier than expected.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Neil Kinnock, another former party leader, delivered two extraordinary speeches that were both rousing and deeply personal.

Mr Brown recalled Michael leading a mass march in Glasgow and how he gave him a first edition of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) for his son when he was born.

In his speech, of about 10 minutes, the PM talked about Michael’s literary interests, his speeches, Plymouth Argyle and then urged party members to remember their “roots”.

My impression of Mr Brown was far removed from the unruly and illiterate “Prime Monster” we read about in the news; he was gentle and eloquent. 

Before the meeting Mr Kinnock asked me to jot down a verse from a poem, normally associated with my father, Paul. 

He wanted the last lines of Shelley’s Mask of Anarchy, written following the Peterloo massacre in Manchester in 1819. Mr Kinnock gave the note to Mr Brown and he closed his speech with it – to a loud round of applause:

Rise Like Lions After Slumber,
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep have fallen on you,
Ye are many, they are few.

Emotive stuff, I thought, for a party said to be short on stimulus.

When the meeting was done, MPs Hilary Benn, and David Miliband came and told me what Michael meant to them. He was one of the main reasons they joined the Labour Party, they said, part of their history.

Perhaps, some of those sentiments may be driving them on over the next few months.

In the House of Lords bar afterwards, many memories were shared over a few beers and glasses of Scotch. 

Tony Lloyd, MP for Manchester Central and chairman of the PLP, told me: “We [Labour] are a family – and united.”

‘Solidarity’ lessons for paperboy

I WAS Michael’s paper boy in the late 1970s. I was 14 years old and it was my first job – I collected the newspapers from Lavell’s in South End Green each day.

I would often bump into him as I delivered his papers. We would sometimes walk together and talk as he headed off to the Heath or to the 24 bus stop.

I have to confess that I did not always fully understand what Michael was ­enthusiastically trying to get across to me. I remember being enthralled by these discussions and desperately hoped each day that I would see him.

We would often talk about the Grunwick dispute. I told him I thought they should get back to work and I was against the flying pickets. Michael said to me: “We’re all workers – it’s about showing solidarity.”

I was living in Gospel Oak at the time, in Courthope Road, and was a pupil at Haverstock School. I would often take the points he had made and try and put them across to school-mates. 

We had a lot of conversations about racism. At the time, the National Front skinheads were always outside the gates of Haverstock distributing their magazine.

Over time, he changed my view of the world. He advised me to join Youth CND. Then Anti Apartheid, the Anti Nazi League and finally, in 1985, the Labour Party. 

Later, I went to work in John Lewis. I remember, I think because we were working in retail, there was a lot of indignation about the donkey jacket incident at the Cenotaph. I used to say: “It’s not a bloody donkey jacket, and it’s much more important what’s in his head.”
COLIN NASH

• Mr Nash is now 45 and has been living in Somerset since 1994. He left the Labour Party in 2001 following the invasion of Iraq.

Tributes – ‘Remarkable, honest and committed’

TRIBUTES to former Labour leader Michael Foot have flooded into the New Journal offices this week. The politician and journalist died at his home in Pilgrim’s Lane, Hampstead, last Wednesday, aged 96.

Among those who spoke of his commitment to social justice was Chris McLaughlin, the current editor of Tribune, which Michael edited for many years.

He said: “His support ran right through our paper – politically, and then literary and journalistic. He took an interest right up to the end. He would call and say ‘well done’, or ‘why have you not reviewed this book?’ 

“He kept a close eye on the ­Tribune – he was our conscience. We made him editor-in-chief last year in recognition of his work. His politics were informed with this great wealth of reading and learning. The only sadness is that this distinctive and decent man shows the paucity of good politicians in Parliament today.”

Labour MPs Frank Dobson and Glenda Jackson spoke of Michael’s unwavering belief in politics as a means to improve society.

Holborn and St Pancras MP Mr Dobson said: “He was one of the most decent and honest people you could care to come across. He was denouncing neo-conservatism before it had been invented.” 

And Mr Dobson added that Michael was great company. He added: “Unlike so many politicians today, he understood the value of wit in a speech – he was very funny. And he was no puritan – he liked company, he liked a drink and loved good food.”

Hampstead and Highgate MP Ms Jackson said: “It is not just a loss for the Labour Party – he was force for politics across the country and the world.

“His political ability came from the fact that he simply believed in what he said. He had this ­passion, and he sincerely believed politics could be used as a force for the good.”

Labour colleague MP Michael Meacher said Foot’s tenure as leader of the party came at its lowest possible moment – but that history would absolve him from any blame. 

He said: “He was one of its finest. He had the misfortune to be leader when Thatcher was at her most triumphant, with the Falklands War. 

“When her project floundered at the end of the 1980s it was a shame he was no longer leader. He was not a modern politician. He was utterly committed to peace and humanity.”

And former London mayor Ken Livingstone remembered Michael’s personal loyalty. 

He said: “I had been the leader of the GLC for around six months when he became the leader of the Labour Party. He was under extreme pressure from the right wing of the party to discipline me. He was caught between two groups and he was simply the only person who could have ­managed it and kept it together. It was because the party knew he was a totally honest and remarkable person.”
DAN CARRIER