 Towards perceived adversaries, Bessie showed neither patience nor respect, especially those with whom she had once shared common ground on the far left. Apart from her attacks on Bevan, she displayed particular scorn for the future Labour Party leader Michael Foot, whose practice in the 1950s of writing articles attacking the Labour leadership for right-wing newspapers was, she thought, disloyal. A much reported exchange between her and Churchill has her accusing him of being drunk, and him concurring but adding: "My dear you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly" — or similar words. There is no reliable evidence that any such exchange took place; despite its popularity, commentators are generally sceptical. According to the columnist Simon Hoggart, similar stories involving other figures had been circulating for years; he concluded: "If it sounds true, if it echoes something we feel about the politician, then it will cling to him or her as if bonded with superglue".
