Michael Foot RIP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/03/michael-foot-dies

xposted from the rolling RIP thread -

Michael Foot was great: literate, intelligent, humane, a very appealing figure.

He used to come in the bookshop where I worked - hmphing, and cracking his walking stick on the floor - to enquire whether the penguin Gullivers Travels he'd written the introduction to had sold any. If it was in, he was delighted and would buy a copy ('I never have one, always giving it away to people') and if it wasn't (usually due to my negligence) he would also be delighted, as it showed it had been selling.

He wrote an excellent historical reimagining of Swift's world The Pen and the Sword as well.

RIP indeed.

xposted from the rolling RIP thread -

RIP michael foot

i don't think we have a college chant, so uh "go eagles" big man, i guess

― the archetypal ghetto hustler (history mayne), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 12:30 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Didn't realise he was still around. Must've been quite old?

― We should have called Suzie and Bobby (NickB), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 12:35 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

96

― the archetypal ghetto hustler (history mayne), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 12:37 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I saw Mr Foot in the Gay Hussar restaurant in Soho about four years ago (well, he had been in the private room upstairs). I think he was in a wheelchair at that stage. If I'd been more drunk, I'd have quoted his own Ode To Everton FC back at him..."At Goodison I know a man can learn / Rapture more rich than Anfield can provide". 1983 must've been doubly hard then.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 12:45 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

thought he'd get his own thread

― nakhchivan, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 12:41 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

He always seemed like someone too good for politics.

RIP Michael. Not enough human beings like you around, now or any time.

Crap. RIP. The kind of old school old Labour figure I find it hard not to be v sentimental about. A good run, & good work. Shame about '83

Oh my, sad but inevitable. RIP.

RIP celebrity Plymouth Argyle fan

GamalielRatsey that story is a treat.

was he the most leftwing postwar labour leader?

He was the only left wing postwar labout leader!

haha

loool

RIP. Always liked him. Just looney enough.

Anyone pilloried by the tabloid press for his choice of jacket is alright by me. RIP.

OTM. It was a nice donkey jacket.

why was the labour left wing so unsucessful in nominating a leader until 1980?

Focus of one of the all time great headlines as well - 'FOOT HEADS ARMS BODY'.

RIP. Feels like looking into a different world now.

Right wing unions. Plus right wing party, for the most part. (xp)

"Right wing" of course, I mean Roy Hattersley comes across like a left wing firebrand these days

you also had the cold war which sorta polarized shit i guess. even wilson was smeared as a commie.

RIP. Feels like looking into a different world now.

this exactly
not felt so acutely in an obit since reading about billy wilder interviewing freud
rip anyway big man, disappointed at the low placing of this on sites

tbh a lot of people feel that world ended long time ago

on 1 may 1997

nah jokes but rly tho

When did John Smith snuff it again?

Always associate news of him dying with first hearing Oasis on Radio 1. Don't think there was a connection. 1994?

Feckin' Britpop did for him

GONNA LIVE FOREVAH!
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/03/03/article-1255092-00EE589B00000190-255_634x343.jpg

I've just seen this in the Cameron thread or something. How sad. My copy of Gulliver's Travels has an intro by Foot, on account of him coming from an era when politicians were rounded people with diverse interests and not the dead-eyed technocrats that pack the major Parties today.

He was a man who least deserved the endless shit thrown at him by scumbag journalists in the 1980s, a proper human being with values and a conscience. I'm sure there'll be plenty of Then and Now think pieces over the next few days - I hope his death'll be decently marked, anyway - so I'm not gonna go off on one now. Just saying that looking back to the kind of guy that he was able to be within his Party, within this country, and then comparing him to 2010, makes me wanna fucking weep.

Michael Foot’s death has prompted me to donate to Labour GE campaign. Will others do the same? http://bit.ly/csztrH #labourwin #pleaseRT

^^ stay classy, sally bercow. r.i.p., michael foot.

"It's quite a change to have a Prime Minister who hasn't got any political ideas at all"
- quoted in the observer 24 february 1991

would be kinda nice if this was the headline of some newspapers tomorrow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/03/michael_foots_long_and_diverse.html

nice tribute. "he was the only leader of either main party since World War II to retire and die without taking a title of any kind."

Michael Foot also wrote an intro to the first part of Ignazio Silone's Abruzzo Trilogy (Fontamara), a commie-vs-fascists political novel.

Michael Foot’s death has prompted me to donate to Labour GE campaign. Will others do the same? http://bit.ly/csztrH #labourwin #pleaseRT

^^ stay classy, sally bercow. r.i.p., michael foot.

― joe, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 15:50 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I clicked that link then followed it via http://www.labour.org.uk/future-fair-for-all to the main Labour site, then when I clicked back again the scrolling widget messed up and I can now see everyone's full names, phone numbers, email addresses and postcodes.

Actually if you do a "view source" you can see it all anyway despite people only agreeing to their name, town and comment to be published. Anyone want a bunch of Labour donors emails?

omg that is fucked

rip btw

Yeah, have you notified their sysadmin?

I sent a message - no response but I think it's been fixed.

Guess who?

Comrade Foot: An apology
There's been a huge response to my column on Michael Foot last Friday. Some people think I owe Wurzel an apology.
As you know, this column is always happy to correct any inaccuracies, so here goes.

On Friday, I wrote that at least Footy wasn't a paid-up agent of the Soviet Union.
Now I learn that, according to former Russian spy Oleg Gordievsky, Foot was on the KGB payroll for 20 years.
He also published pro-Soviet articles in Tribune in exchange for Moscow gold.
Apologies for any embarrassment caused.

Can't he be sued for this?

No, he dead so people can say *anything*.

Gordiesky has been saying that for years, Foot successfully sued the Sunday Times for publishing it some years back. I'm not surprised he's bringing it up again now.

the full version is this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7377111/Was-Foot-a-national-treasure-or-the-KGBs-useful-idiot.html

foot didn't sue gordy when he first made the allegations, says moore, but only when they appeared in the sunday times, in a slightly different form. nothing to get tooooo upset about. remember that the literary journal 'encounter' was funded by the cia. foot certainly wasn't a communist.

Wish I could have got me some Moscow Gold back in the day.

I thought there was some "dead person" clause that Littlejohn was taking advantage of, not too upset, but fuck him for being a coward.

http://i.imgur.com/Rl9TY.png