Former British labour party leader Michael Foot dies

[Bankotsu]

Michael Foot: tributes and reaction

The death of Michael Foot was announced shortly after 12pm today. I'll be reporting on the tributes to one of the giants of Labour postwar politics as they come in.


Michael Foot in April 1972. Photograph: Leonard Burt/Getty Images

4.35pm: Here are some more memories of Foot from the comments section below.
This is from Zoonie:

The last time we both saw Michael Foot was at Joan Lestor's funeral. Joan was another great champion of fairness. Another anti-fascist campaigner who stood shoulder to shoulder with her great friend Barbara Castle but has somehow not been recognised in history so much. This was in 1998 and Michael was already physically frail. He stood, carefully but well and after a fairly blank political waffle of a speech by John Prescott, Michael Foot delivered a strong eulogy to his friend in halting tones, as his condition allowed. But nobody cared. We would have stayed all afternoon to listen. Everyone in the room loved him, you see.
With his death, those great political warrior names from the 20th century sink further from view. They were energised by the fight against acute poverty and fascism, and they just don't make them like that anymore.

This is from smackhead:

used to see him walking his dog on Hampstead Heath, he used to get the 24 bus down to Westminster and use his OAP pass

This is from Pyrrhic:

My late uncle, a senior civil servant, very, very rarely spoke about politicians or politics. The only time I ever heard him comment on a politician was to do with Michael and you could tell that he was genuinely in awe of the man and greatly respected his intellect.
A sad loss to Britain and a shame that we will probably never see another man of his integrity as a leader of a major politic party in this country.

4.31pm: This is from Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party:

Michael Foot passing away signals the end of a great life and an era in politics but his memory will live on in the work of those inspired by him and in those who will read his writings.
Michael was at the heart of the Labour Party and was inspired by the values of democratic socialism; in turn, he inspired those around him to work to promote those ideals.
He will be missed by his many friends and admirers from all walks of life.

4.10pm: Lady Thatcher's office has just issued this tribute to Foot from the former prime minister:

I was very sorry to hear the news. He was a great parliamentarian and a man of his priniciples.

4.01pm: There are a couple of other blogs reporting the tributes to Foot. Here they are:
BBC website
LabourList
3.58pm: Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, has issued this statement:

Michael Foot was a man of enormous principle, with a political career founded on a passion and commitment to the party and causes he loved. He was a remarkable and dedicated man, held in the highest regard across the political spectrum over a period of many decades.
Michael Foot was in the House of Commons after my election, in the 1987-92 Parliament, and was a wonderful speaker to listen to - a fantastic old-style debater. My thoughts are with his many friends, colleagues and family. Michael Foot will be greatly missed, and his memory treasured by his party and the country.

3.56pm: George Galloway has paid a Twitter tribute too.

Farewell Michael Foot: Great orator, editor and thinker - the most decent leader Labour ever had #fb


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/b...el-foot-labour

[Bankotsu]

Michael Foot: key quotes

Memorable quotations from the former Labour leader, who has died aged 96

On nuclear weapons

A Britain which denounced the insanity of the nuclear strategy would be in a position to direct its influence at the United Nations and in the world at large, in a manner at present denied us. (1960)

On Aneurin Bevan

The only man I knew who could make a curse sound like a caress. (Aneurin Bevan, Vol 1, 1962)

On the Profumo scandal

The members of our secret service have apparently spent so much time under the bed looking for communists that they haven't had the time to look in the bed. (1963)

On royal commissions

A broody hen sitting on a china egg. (1964)

On Lords reform

Think of it! A second chamber selected by whips. A seraglio of eunuchs. (Feb 1969)

On Tory leaders

Disraeli was my favourite Tory. He was an adventurer pure and simple, or impure and complex. I'm glad to say Gladstone got the better of him. (March 1975)

On Marxism

There is nothing wrong with being a Marxist. Their point of view is essential to a democratic debate. (Daily Telegraph, 1977)

On Norman Tebbit

It is not necessary that every time he rises he should give his famous imitation of a semi-trained polecat. (March 1978)

On David Steel, Leader of the Liberal party

He's passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever. (March 1979)

On protest

Most liberties have been won by people who broke the law. (Interview, 1980)

On Margaret Thatcher

She has no imagination and that means no compassion. (1981)

On Labour's 1983 election defeat

[Explaining Labour's 1983 election defeat when he was leader.] We had not the armour, the strength, the quickness in manoeuvre, yes, the leadership. (Another Heart and Other Pulses, 1984)

On John Major

It's quite a change to have a prime minister who hasn't got any political ideas at all. (February 1991)

On Tony Blair

No rising hope on the political scene who offered his services to Labour when I happened to be its leader can be dismissed as an opportunist. (February 1995)


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...oot-key-quotes

[Bankotsu]

Just reporting the death of an interesting figure.


Michael Foot: Labour's 1983 general election manifesto and 'the longest suicide in history'

Labour’s 1983 general election manifesto never survived the description given it by Gerald Kaufman, then a shadow minister, as “the longest suicide note in history”.


The document - “New Hope for Britain” - was certainly lengthy (700 pages) and was nearly as along as both the Liberal-SDP Alliance’s and Conservatives’ manifestos.

Compared to today's more cautious manifestos, Labour's 1983 version did not hold back - largely because of then-leader Michael Foot’s demand that it would comprise the resolutions arrived at the party’s last conference,

The document called for unilateral nuclear disarmament, the abolition of the House of Lords and the re-nationalisation of recently privatised industries like British Telecom, British Aerospace and the British Shipbuilding Corporation.

The manifesto called for the UK to withdraw from the European Economic Community and an end to council house sales.

It also committed the Labour government to five-year national plan and a new Department of Economic and Industrial Planning.

The ambitious scale of the manifesto backfired though, with the far left nature of many of the policies - combined with Margaret Thatcher’s popularity in the wake of the 1982 Falklands War - contributing to a Tory landslide.

Labour's 1983 manifesto marked the last time that Labour would dogmatically pursue a leftwing agenda when trying to win power.

In following election, the party gradually adopted a more market orientated set of policies, culminating in Labour’s 1997 general election landslide.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...n-history.html


Michael Foot, the last true socialist Labour leader dies

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ader-dies.html

[Zanthorus]

Methinks Bankotsu might need to do a little bit of reading:

http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blog...ight-foot.html

[heiss93]

Just reporting the death of an interesting figure.


Michael Foot: Labour's 1983 general election manifesto and 'the longest suicide in history'

Labour’s 1983 general election manifesto never survived the description given it by Gerald Kaufman, then a shadow minister, as “the longest suicide note in history”.


The document - “New Hope for Britain” - was certainly lengthy (700 pages) and was nearly as along as both the Liberal-SDP Alliance’s and Conservatives’ manifestos.

Compared to today's more cautious manifestos, Labour's 1983 version did not hold back - largely because of then-leader Michael Foot’s demand that it would comprise the resolutions arrived at the party’s last conference,

The document called for unilateral nuclear disarmament, the abolition of the House of Lords and the re-nationalisation of recently privatised industries like British Telecom, British Aerospace and the British Shipbuilding Corporation.

The manifesto called for the UK to withdraw from the European Economic Community and an end to council house sales.

It also committed the Labour government to five-year national plan and a new Department of Economic and Industrial Planning.

The ambitious scale of the manifesto backfired though, with the far left nature of many of the policies - combined with Margaret Thatcher’s popularity in the wake of the 1982 Falklands War - contributing to a Tory landslide.

Labour's 1983 manifesto marked the last time that Labour would dogmatically pursue a leftwing agenda when trying to win power.

In following election, the party gradually adopted a more market orientated set of policies, culminating in Labour’s 1997 general election landslide.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...n-history.html


Michael Foot, the last true socialist Labour leader dies

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ader-dies.html

Is the 700 page manifesto available online?

[Red Commissar]

Is the 700 page manifesto available online?

Here is the text of Labour's 1983 platform, which I guess is this manifesto they're referring to.

http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/lab83.htm

It was probably printed in such a way that it came out to 700 pages, because I'm only getting 45 from a quick copy-paste.

[RGacky3]

Supporting the third-world bourgeois is one thing, but supporting the unashamedly imperialist first-world bourgeois is beyond belief, how do you even call yourself a revolutionary? Of all people Michael Foot?

Why on earth is supporting the third-world bourgeois better than supporting the first world bourgeois? (other than Mao said so), the only reaso nthe third world bourgeois are not imperialistic is because they can't be, but they are itching to be, silly maoist.

[Devrim]

There is another thread on this: http://www.revleft.com/vb/michael-fo...html?p=1687670

I posted these comments from one of our UK members:

Michael Foot: inveterate warmonger
On his death there were many reminders that Michael Foot had described himself as an “inveterate peacemonger”. The evidence of his life says something different.
In the 1930s he campaigned for arms to be sent to fuel the war in Spain.
In 1940 he was the main author of Guilty Men, a 40,000 word book written after the Dunkirk debacle that criticised the lack of British preparedness for war and the policy of appeasement towards German imperialism. That this meant the pursuit of a policy of military aggression was confirmed when Foot was part of the movement for a “Second Front Now” that wanted to further extend the barbaric conflict on the eastern front.
When he was Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition he was one of the most jingoist supporters of the Falklands War. In parliament the Tories cheered speeches in which “He did the nation a service” and had “spoken for Britain”. Appropriately Foot congratulated Thatcher on her victory.
In the 1990s he was one of the first to advocate the bombing of Serbia, and, indeed, went on to demand an extension of the action as “The West will have to do more than bomb Serbia.”
An Early Day Motion was tabled after his death describing him as an “internationalist”. Far from being an ‘internationalist’ he was a patriotic British nationalist, in the same way that his ‘socialism’ was a commitment to state capitalism. Far from being a ‘peacemonger,’ he was, like all the leading Labour Party figures since the First World War, an inveterate warmonger. Car 5/3/10

Devrim

[Bankotsu]

Michael Foot: inveterate warmonger
In 1940 he was the main author of Guilty Men, a 40,000 word book written after the Dunkirk debacle that criticised the lack of British preparedness for war and the policy of appeasement towards German imperialism.

Was Foot aware that the appeasement policy was based on directing Germany eastwards to destroy the Soviet Union?


The "Daily Worker", the print organ of the british communist party also opposed the policy of appeasing Hitler to let him go east to destroy the USSR.

I was wondering whether Foot also opposed appeasement based on similar reasons.

The Apologies of the Communist Party

After their first reaction — one of utter consternation — the British Communist
Party Central Committee published a .remarkable statement in the Daily Worker
(August 23rd). Its claims were so amazing and the evidence on which they were
based is so negligible that the statement is no less amazing than if the
Communist Party had decided to deny everything and declare the whole affair to
be an invention of the capitalist Press. (They might just as well have taken
this line for all the effect their apologetics seem to have had on most of their
followers.)

During recent weeks the News Chronicle has several times reported statements
that the German Government was making approaches to Russia for a Pact. Each time
the Daily Worker has ridiculed the suggestion and put it down to pro-Nazi
influences in Great Britain. Now, when it transpires that the statements were
correct, and the Russian Government had secretly been negotiating such a Pact,
the Daily Worker (August 23rd) blares forth in great headlines that the
German-Russian talks are a " Victory for Peace and Socialism," a " Blow to
Fascist War Plans and the Policy of Chamberlain."

In brief, the argument is that
Mr. Chamberlain's policy was that " of endeavouring to strengthen Germany to
attack the U.S.S.R., and to refuse the Peace Front," and that " the action of
the Soviet Union in its present negotiations with Germany has spiked the guns of
the pro-Fascist intrigues of Chamberlain and has strengthened the hands of the
British people in their fight for the Anglo-Soviet Pact

http://www.revleft.com/vb/soviet-nazi-pact-t125380/index.html?t=125380&highlight=daily+worker+chamber lain

[RGacky3]

Never said "it's better", however it's far more understandable to me. For instance, someone who supports Hamas based on seeing their brothers and sisters massacred by the Israeli state has much more understanding from me than some first-world piece of shit who supports Obama's progressivism, there is a world of difference.

First of all, where do you live? God help you if its the first world.

Second of all, what progressivism? I hav'nt seen any other than campain rhetoric.

THird of all, someone who supports hamas supports them because they believe it will improve their lives, and stop their suffering, its the same reason people supported Obama. The amount of suffering may be different but the reason for supporting them is the same.

[RGacky3]

thirdly I don't care, you can say what you like but it doesn't change the fact that someone who supports Hamas has more that likely lost someone they knew and cared about to Israeli aggression.

Yeah, and what? You don't think that if those same people were in the US they would'nt support whatever they thought would benefit them?

Yes, I live in the first-world and what? I don't care what you think

Obviously you don't, nor do you care about making sense, or looking like an idiot bashing anyone living in the first world, when you ... live in the first world.