Yorkshire Miners general secretary Owen Briscoe, Arthur Scargill, Michael Foot and Yorkshire Miners official Phil Horbury march in 1971
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Remarkable journey of a socialist rebel
The rich tapestry of the life of former Labour leader Michael Foot has been chronicled excellently, writes Geoffrey Goodman
Michael Foot: A Life by Kenneth O Morgan, Harper Collins, £25.
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CITIZEN Foot of Hampstead is one of the most extraordinary and quite unique figures of British public life in the 20th century. I use the label ‘British’ in the broad generic sense – in fact Michael Foot is a very English figure.
A good many people who read this newspaper may well have walked past him and his dog as the pair of them ambled across Hampstead Heath, Michael waving his stick in the air, innocently – though usually in harmony with his dog wagging a tail.
A few fellow walkers who felt familiar enough might call out, warmly:“Morning Michael” – and the stick waved back.
Most knew him only as “that rebel socialist fellow” though they would watch and admire, perhaps wanting to ask a question or even to agree with something they had heard him say.
Years ago that was a familiar Hampstead Heath scene. It is no longer the case because, nearing 94, Michael no longer walks the Heath and the dog is gone.
But he remains there in Pilgrim’s Lane, widely regarded as a national treasure and still, as always, the Great Crusader.
So this new biography of Michael Foot, former deputy Prime Minister, exceptional writer, journalist and pamphleteer, Cromwellian-style dissenter against most conventional wisdom, life-long campaigner for human rights, peace and freedom of speech – indeed, a true old style socialist, is to be welcomed.
Of course this is not the first biography of Michael Foot. An excellent one was written by Mervyn Jones in 1994. However, Professor Morgan’s is the first with full approval of the subject.
Professor the Lord Kenneth Owen Morgan, is the 72-year-old Labour peer and a distinguished Oxford historian who has previously written excellent biographies on David Lloyd George, Keir Hardie and James Callaghan as well as substantial histories on the Labour Party.
He was the personal choice of Michael Foot’s late wife, Jill Craigie (who died in 1999) and in that sense it is an “official” biography for which Professor Morgan was given access to the Foot papers and archives.
Even so, the task of writing about Michael Foot is a huge challenge to any writer and academic no matter how experienced since, effectively, it amounts to writing a history of the British Left across the last century. In short it is a vast canvas, full of turbulence which, inevitably, exposes any writer to considerable political risk.
Yet, despite all the hurdles and difficulties, Professor Morgan has produced a very good book and one that will become obligatory reading to all students of the British political scene during the 20th century.
Consider the tapestry – Michael Foot was the youngest son of the remarkable Isaac Foot, a man of Devon who established a dynasty of radical dissenters with a family of five sons and two daughters, all of them involved in West Country noncomformist liberal political life from the moment Isaac, a lawyer, set the ball rolling before World War I.
In fact Isaac who first became a Liberal MP in 1922 was a candidate in seven general elections and his eldest son, Dingle followed his father’s example. Another brother, Hugh (Lord Caradon and father of Paul Foot) was a distinguished diplomat and Michael himself accepted the family Liberal heritage until, in 1934, after graduating from Oxford, he joined the Labour Party – to the consternation of the entire Foot family.
From that moment the socialist rebel was born, first standing as a Labour candidate (unsuccessfully) at Monmouth in the 1935 election and then increasingly involved in the turbulent left-wing struggles of the 1930s (Spanish civil war, the anti-fascist movement and the Popular Front) first as a journalist on the New Statesman, Tribune and the Daily Herald and then hired by Lord Beaverbrook as feature writer and finally, in 1942, as editor of the Evening Standard.
In the 1945 general election Michael Foot landed in the House of Commons as MP for Plymouth. He lost the seat in 1950, regained it a year later but finally lost Plymouth in the 1955 election. Five years later he returned to Parliament when he succeeded to Aneurin Bevan’s Ebbw Vale constituency after Bevan’s death in 1960.
Foot remained in Parliament for another 32 years – spending most of that time on the back benches as a radical critic of his own party leadership and, of course, various Conservative governments.
In fact when he finally joined the Labour Government of Harold Wilson as a Cabinet Minister after the 1974 election he had already spent nearly 30 years in Parliament without ever having an official role.
Then in rapid succession he was Secretary of State for Employment, Leader of the House of Commons and deputy Prime Minister in Jim Callaghan’s government.
It was an extraordinary transformation from the arch rebel back bencher – albeit without ever sacrificing his characteristic radicalism.
The account of this remarkable journey is told with great skill and sympathy by Professor Morgan – albeit to the author’s credit not without frequent critical analysis some of which I do not accept as an accurate picture.
But that aside, Professor Morgan’s book above all is notable for its reasoned objectivity.
Throughout all his tempestuous political journey Michael Foot never ceased his commitment to what was his first and indeed his lasting love – journalism and writing books.
Foot’s two-volume biography of his hero, Aneurin Bevan, remains one of the outstanding classics of 20th century political biography while his brilliant excursions into the history, significance and social impact of some of our greatest poets and writers – notably Byron – are among the treasures of contemporary literature.
Professor Morgan’s huge task in bringing all this within the covers of this biography is a work of superb academic achievement.
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