Michael Foot - A man of politics and literature

Published: 4 March 2010

MICHAEL Foot played a campaigning role in 20 general elections, and led an active political career that spanned two centuries. He first hit the campaign trail in 1929 and, 76 years later, threw his intellectual weight behind Labour’s election in 2005.

Michael became a national figure when, aged 27 in 1940, he co-wrote Guilty Men, a devastating critique of Britain and appeasement politics in the 1930s, with two fellow scribes based at the Evening Standard. It was the start of a public life that married politics and literature.

Michael was born in 1913, the fifth of seven children. His family hailed from Plymouth, his father Isaac a solicitor and a Liberal MP. Michael’s connections with Plymouth were lifelong: he became a  director of Plymouth Argyle Football Club.

Isaac was a Methodist and would preach, and was also such an avid book ­collector that he bought a bigger house to accommodate his library. He told his ­children it was a sin to be a Tory; Michael’s love of books and his ability as a public speaker show the influence of his father’s skills.

Michael was educated at a Quaker school near Reading – later he would be a key figure in establishing the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and then went on to read politics, philosophy and ­economics at Oxford.

Michael went to work as a personal assistant to Leonard Cripps, the brother of Labour politician Stafford, who ran a shipping line from Liverpool. It was his experiences in the docks that helped cement his views as a socialist.

When war broke out, Michael’s asthma stopped him from being called up, and he took on the editorship of the Standard before going to work for the Daily Herald.

He was first elected as an MP in 1945 and, with only a short period in the 1950s away from the House, finally stood down in 1992.

His literary life was as important to him as his political career: a working journalist throughout his life, he was the editor of both the Evening Standard and Tribune.

His heroes were politicians who espoused their views through their writing – William Hazlitt, Tom Paine, and William Cobbett. He wrote a biography of HG Wells and of Nye Bevan, his inspiration. He wrote the Pen and the Sword about Jonathan Swift among others.

Michael lived in Pilgrims Lane, Hampstead, for many years with his wife, the film-maker Jill Craigie, who he had married in 1949.
DAN CARRIER

‘A true gent’ – Memories of Michael

TV newsreader Jon Snow said:
 “I first met Michael as a cub reporter working on the 1974 election. I remember him being physically chaotic but verbally, absolutely mes­merising. He could give the most sensational speeches.
“You will not see someone who was such a brilliant writer, thinker and orator lead a ­political party again. Politics has gone beyond containing a man like Michael Foot.

“He shared this intellectualism with Churchill. It is hard to imagine great speakers and thinkers such as Foot will ever get positions of leadership again. He also proved that a man with idealism and romance is actually unfit to lead a political party.”

Former Downing Street aide Fiona Millar, a family friend, said:
“He kept the [Labour] ­party on the road despite the trouble and the mauling he got in the press. He even managed to take that in good grace. He was just an incredibly nice man, and that was why he held the Labour Party together. He was not a politician for the modern age.

“Oratory mattered so much more then than soundbites. He wanted real discussion about ideas. He would have thought such issues as whether Gordon Brown pushed past someone on the stairs at Number 10 to have been utterly ridiculous. He was also very loyal to the party, and supported every leader. He had a crucial role to play in keeping the party together.”

John Wrobel, manager of the Gay Hussar in Greek Street, Soho, Michael's favourite restaurant, said:
“He was our longest-serving regular, and we’d always look forward to holding ­special birthday parties for him. We’ll raise a glass in his memory in July, when he would have been 97. He will be greatly missed – a true ­gentleman.”