Michael Foot
Overview
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

, PC (23 July 1913 – 3 March 2010) was a British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, who was a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960
Ebbw Vale by-election, 1960
The Ebbw Vale by-election of 17 November 1960 was a by-election for a single seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. Caused by the death of Labour Party Deputy Leader Aneurin Bevan, the constituency was very safely held by the party and never in danger of changing hands...

 until 1992. He was deputy leader of the Labour Party 1976 to 1980, and later became the Leader of the Opposition from 1980
Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 1980
The British Labour Party leadership election of 1980 was held following the resignation of James Callaghan. Callaghan had been Prime Minister 1976—1979 and had stayed on as leader of the Labour Party for eighteen months in order to oversee an orderly transition to his favoured successor, Denis...

 to 1983
Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 1983
The Labour Party leadership election of 1983 was an election in the United Kingdom for the leadership of the Labour Party. It occurred when former leader Michael Foot resigned after winning only 209 seats at the 1983 general election — a loss of 70 seats compared to their performance at the...

.

Associated with the Labour left for most of his career, he was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...

 and British withdrawal from the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...

.
Quotations

How long will it be before the cry goes up: "Let's kill all the judges"?

Attacking the National Industrial Relations Court and its President, Sir John Donaldson, in a speech at the Scottish Miners' Gala in Edinburgh (3 June, 1972).

I certainly think that a Labour Government will have to have effective powers to control the outflow of capital.

On Election Call (21 February, 1974).

Some fool or some trigger happy judicial finger.

On the NIRC Judge Sir John Donaldson (Hansard, 7 May 1974, Col. 239).

[There are] judges who stretch the law...to suit reactionary attitudes.

On ITV's People and Politics (9 May, 1974).

The crisis afflicting this country, along with other countries of the Western world, is a crisis of capitalism. It is a crisis of the dominant economic system that prevails in all those countries.

Speech to the House of Commons (Hansard, 20 January 1976, Col. 1126).

I've been on the left of the Party since I joined it about 1934 and I haven't seen much reason for altering...I have always been a strong libertarian both inside the Labour Party and outside...what I want to seek to do over a period of course is to establish a Socialist society.

On BBC's Panorama (22 March, 1976).

It's impossible to write the history of freedom in this country without telling how trade unions have contributed to it.

On the ITV's Weekend World (4 April, 1976).

It does so happen to be the case that if the freedom of the people of this country—and especially the rights of trade unionists—if those precious things in the past had been left to the good sense and fairmindedness of judges, we would have precious few freedoms in this country.

Speech to the Union of Post Office Workers at Bournemouth (15 May, 1977).

It is not necessary that every time he rises he should give his famous imitation of semi-house-trained polecat.

Speech in the House of Commons, 2 March 1978, referring to Norman Tebbit

Of all the sights and sounds which attracted me on my first arrival to live in London in the mid-thirties, one combined operation left a lingering, individual spell. I naturally went to Hyde Park to hear the orators, the best of the many free entertainments on offer in the capital. I heard the purest milk of the world flowing, then as now, from the platform of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Debts of Honour, 1980.

 
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