Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot

Subject: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: GUEST,Daily Mail Reader
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 08:07 AM

Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 1913 - 3 March 2010) was a British Labour politician and writer, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1992, and was the Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. A bastion of what was later called Old Labour, he was a passionate supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, state ownernship of major industries and British withdrawal from the European Economic Community.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 08:16 AM

A good man has died.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Smedley
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 08:18 AM

RIP a genuinely great Briton.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Emma B
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 08:21 AM

Just listening to a tribute from Tony Benn a cabinet colleague and occasional nemesis describe him as "one of the great figures of the Labour movement."

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 08:27 AM

A leg end in his own lifetime.
Last of the left wing intillectuals.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Stu
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 10:16 AM

A sad day not only for his friends and family, but for British politics as we loose a great politician and political thinker. Unlike so many of today's media-obsessed and gutless wonders that people Westminster Foot was a man who had the courage of his convictions and wasn't afraid to spark debate and discussion.

We'll be lucky if we see his like ever again.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 12:08 PM

A great man gone. A thorougly decent and caring man who stood for social justice and integrity but was something of an eccentric as well. Not appreciated by the British at large: they were waiting for Blair. Say no More!

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 12:16 PM

I used to see him a lot, in Sidmouth, where he had a house. He looked proper poorly every time I saw him.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 12:42 PM

Michael Foot looked often looked unwell Lizzie, and always had a somewhat ramshackle, gait. But once he came to the rostrum he was fully co-ordinated and fully in control - not only politically forceful but also witty, charming and stylish.

He is the last in a family of outstanding achievers, having outlived his brothers Dingle, John (Lord Foot) and Hugh (Lord Caradon) and Hugh's son, the campaigning journalist Paul. His majesterial biography of Aneurin Bevan and "Guilty Men" - his indictment of those who sought to appease Hitler in the years preceding WW2 - will be lasting testaments to his writing and journalism.

Some friends feared he would switch off from politics and lose his zest for life after his wife Jill Craigie died some years ago, but he remained actively engaged until close to the end. Often maligned by the press and by fellow politicians, he bore no grudges. And by his own account, he had a good innings.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: paula t
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 12:45 PM

A great man who understood the need for equality of opportunity. Perhaps not the greatest of leaders because he was not enough of a "politician". Wasn't interested in "playing games".

A sad day.

Subject: BS: Obit: Michael Foot
From: HuwG
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 06:17 PM

Not musical at all, but veteran Labour (UK) politician Michael Foot died today aged 96.

He was perhaps the wrong leader to take Labour into power (his deputy Roy Hattersley claimed that they won the literary critics' vote by a landslide, but nobody else's).

He was also known for his untidy appearance. The "Two Ronnies" once joked that he was Britain's representative on the committee for the "International Year of the Dishevelled".

In this day of pre-packaged, demographically-researched politicians, he is worth some regard for his integrity.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 06:22 PM

A scholar and a gentleman.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: GUEST,A Friend
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 02:38 AM

Undoubtedly a powerful speaker. How would he, and we, have fared had he made it to No.10?

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 03:47 AM

Funny, I just posted this and the post fairy ate it.

Regrettably his altruism failed effectively to defeat greed and selfishness.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 04:02 AM

There are many tributes in the press talking about his orator skills, but few examples, so here goes my favourite;

"We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer, 'To hell with them'. The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do."

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 07:16 AM

Guest A FRiend, your hypothesis is improbable enough to be of interest only to academics. The question that has long intrigued me (and I must apologise for drifting) is how would we have faired if John Smith had managed to stave off his fatal heart attack for three more years, allowing him to see Labour home in the 1997 election.

It would be an error to dwell unduly on Foot's oratory. He was no mere demagogue and had a terrific mind, capable of accumulating and retrieving at will vast amounts of knowledge. Substantial chunks of prose by the writers he revered, such as Hazlitt and Swift, were engraved on his heart and he often called on such work to enrich his own writing and to underscore the lessons of history. He could not sit beside a tourist during his journeys up and down London's Northern Line without launching into an entertaining and mutually beneficial chat about whatever part of the world that person was from.

As a politician he stood out from the crowd, notwithstanding that in his heyday, unlike now, politics attracted many of the best. He served in cabinets alongside people like Barbara Castle, Anthony Crosland, Callaghan, Jenkins, not to mention Wilson himself, all of whom for sheer competence would outstrip any of today's lot (as would several of the Tories from that time too).

Even his passionate support for Plymouth Argyle could not be put down to an error of judgement, as it harked back to an era in which it was quite normal to support one's home-town team (an era in which it was also normal for the team to be drawn largely from the immediate locality).

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 08:11 AM

A decent and honourable man

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: goatfell
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 08:59 AM

A True man of the people, unlike the idiots that we have got today.
RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 01:06 PM

A man I came to admire immensely. I never met anyone, who knew him personally, who did not think the world of him.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 05:48 PM

R I P. a good man,96 years of age.
I am genuinely sorry to see him go.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: bubblyrat
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 06:03 PM

A great loss to British politics.I cannot say that I ever felt drawn to any of his loony causes,especially CND,but one cannot deny his eloquence and passion. RIP.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 11:12 AM

Tonight (1900 GMT, Sunday) on the BBC Parliament channel there is a chance to see the first-ever Question Time, on which Michael Foot was one of the guests. Apart from Foot's contribution, it will be a reminder of what the programme was like when it had a sensible four (rather than five) guests, and a chairman.

Subject: RE: Obit: Michael Mackintosh Foot
From: Roughyed
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 06:13 PM

Only met him once at a trade union event where he made a point of saying how much he had enjoyed me and my wife singing, so he appreciated folk music at least. A great socialist and from my experience a very pleasant and intelligent man.