BBC News - The Michael Foot story The Michael Foot story Foot was an MP for 42 years Michael Foot was one of the great political orators, for more than half his life a political rebel and a thorn in the flesh of the establishment. But he became a loyal and determined cabinet minister and, finally, Labour leader, although he took his party to its worst electoral defeat in 50 years. Michael Mackintosh Foot was born in Plymouth on 23 July 1913, into a family of Liberal non-conformists. His solicitor father, Isaac, was twice elected as a Liberal MP for the former Bodmin Constituency in Cornwall and also served as Lord Mayor of Plymouth. The family was steeped in politics. Michael's brother, Dingle Foot became Solicitor General in Harold Wilson's administration, another brother, John became a Liberal peer while a third brother, Hugh, became UK ambassador to the United Nations. Michael attended Leighton Park School, a Quaker establishment in Reading, before going up to Wadham College, Oxford, where he became President of the Oxford Union and converted to socialism.

After his graduation he worked as a shipping clerk in Liverpool where he was shocked by the levels of poverty in the city and social conditions which were a far cry from those he had experienced in Plymouth. Foot joined the Labour Party and fought his first parliamentary election in 1935 when he stood for the Welsh seat of Monmouth. His political beliefs were already well established and he roundly criticised the Conservative Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, for his policy of rearmament. The young Michael Foot He became a journalist, working first for the New Statesman and then for the magazine Tribune before the press baron, Lord Beaverbrook, offered him a job on the London Evening Standard. Turned down by the military because of his chronic asthma, Foot was appointed editor of the Standard in 1942 at the age of 28. He remained there until 1945 when he moved to the Daily Herald which was partly owned by the TUC and was, effectively, the official paper of the Labour Party. In the same year he won the Parliamentary seat of Plymouth Devonport as part of Clement Atlee's landslide victory, the first time Labour had ever held the seat.

He continued working as a journalist with two spells as editor of Tribune, and became a fierce champion of left wing causes as well as a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Foot surprisingly lost his Devonport seat to Dame Joan Vickers in 1955 but returned to parliament in 1960 as Member for Ebbw Vale, the former seat of his great political mentor Aneurin Bevan. His opposition to defence spending led to the whip being withdrawn from him in 1961 and he was outside the Labour fold for two years. Although the whip was restored he refused to serve in Harold Wilson's first two administrations, as he opposed Labour's policies on Vietnam, pay restraint and the Common Market. Michael Foot campaigning in Devonport in 1950 He also formed an unlikely alliance with the Conservative right winger Enoch Powell to oppose government plans to abolish the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. After defeat by Ted Heath's Conservatives in 1970 the Labour left strengthened its position in the party and in 1972 Foot stood, unsuccessfully, for the post of deputy leader.

When Labour returned to power in 1974 Foot accepted the position of Employment Secretary and set about the task of strengthening links between the party and the trades unions. He also campaigned fiercely for a no vote in the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should remain part of the European Economic Community. When Harold Wilson stood down in 1976, Foot stood for the party leadership but was defeated by James Callaghan who appointed him as Leader of the House of Commons. By now Labour was becoming deeply unpopular and a series of by election defeats reduced the party's majority in the House of Commons. It fell to Foot to oversee the workings of the Lib Lab pact, whereby Labour was sustained in power only through the support of the Liberal Party under David Steel. Foot's appearance at the Cenotaph caused controversy A period of industrial unrest, known as the winter of discontent, further undermined the Callaghan administration and Margaret Thatcher's victory swept Labour from power in 1979, condemning the party to 18 years in opposition. Callaghan resigned in 1980 and Labour MPs elected Foot as their leader in preference to the candidate of the right, Denis Healey, some said because they hoped for a quiet life.

But the left was determined to avenge what it saw as the failings of the Callaghan years. There followed a huge campaign to change party rules, and replace former Callaghan supporters with left wing members who would oppose the Common Market, and support a policy of state ownership. Foot, who had stood as a compromise leader to unite the party was, by now 67, and too frail to give the strong leadership that was needed to bring the warring sides together. As the militants gained strength, moderate Labour members followed David Owen and the other members of the so called Gang of Four as they defected from the troubled party and formed the SDP. Foot was heavily criticised by the left for supporting the Falklands campaign, which helped regain some of Mrs Thatcher's falling popularity ahead of the 1983 General Election. It was Foot's unwillingness to change his appearance, his clothes or his principles, that brought him a popularity rating of just 24%, the lowest since polling began. With his wife, Jill Craigie, at the 1983 General Election It would be 26 years before another Labour leader, in that case Gordon Brown, would be more unpopular with the British public.

Most famously, he was accused of wearing a donkey jacket at the Cenotaph in London, during the 1981 Annual Service of Remembrance. Foot later protested that it was actually a perfectly respectable green jacket and claimed the Queen Mother had complimented him on his appearance. But, despite this royal endorsement, the tabloids' view of him as unpatriotic and badly-dressed struck a chord with many members of the public. Foot had insisted that Labour's manifesto for the 1983 General Election should be based on resolutions passed by the Party's annual conference. It contained commitments to unilateral nuclear disarmament, increased personal taxation and greater government interference in industry. The document was famously described by the Labour MP Gerald Kaufman as the longest suicide note in history. The election consigned Labour to its biggest defeat since 1918, and Foot, at 70, was quick to resign the leadership, and was replaced by his protege, Neil Kinnock. Scholar and orator Foot stayed in the Commons till the 1992 election, retiring after 42 years as a Member of Parliament, and refusing to go to the House of Lords, where two of his brothers had already sat.

In retirement, he saw his vision of politics surpassed by Tony Blair's New Labour. Out went the commitment to nationalisation, the famous Clause Four of the Labour manifesto, and in came a renewed belief in the power of the market. Despite his lack of political success, Michael Foot still retained the warm affection of colleagues. In private, he was gentle, kindly, even diffident, and his intellectual scholarship won him many admirers. He wrote nearly 20 books, not just on contemporaries like Bevan and Beaverbrook, but on his literary heroes like Swift and Hazlitt. As a writer, and as an orator, few could match him. His rival Enoch Powell called him "the outstanding Parliamentarian of our time". Factbox - Michael Foot dies | Reuters Wed Mar 3, 2010 | 3:28 PM GMT Factbox - Michael Foot dies Michael Foot, former leader of the Labour Party (R) is seen with the (then) Prime Minster Tony Blair as he arrived to celebrate his 90th birthday in Downing Street, London in this July 14, 2003 file photograph.

Reuters/Peter Macdiarmid/Files Michael Foot, a former leader of the Labour Party and once described as a rebel who could never resist a cause, has died aged 96. Here are some facts about Foot: POLITICAL CAREER: * Foot spent three years from 1980 as leader of the Labour Party. * In June 1983, Labour was crushed at the polls by Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives and spent the next 14 years in exile, wracked by in-fighting under Foot and then Neil Kinnock. Kinnock succeeded him as leader in October 1983. * Foot was in the end neither tough nor decisive enough to dispel his media image of a bohemian intellectual out of date and out of his depth in the modern politics of a television age. He was once ridiculed as eccentric for wearing a duffel coat at a formal memorial service for Britain's war dead. * During his long political career he won affection for his personal warmth and passionate advocacy of left-wing causes, particularly the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. However, in October 1989, the fiery socialist announced he was stepping down from politics and would not seek re-election.

LIFE DETAILS: * Born in July 1913, Michael Mackintosh Foot inherited his father's love of books and politics. * He studied at Oxford University where he became the youngest president of the Oxford Union and was described by an undergraduate magazine as "the most brilliant post-war figure in Oxford politics." * He was converted to socialism by mass unemployment and poverty of the 1930s. He joined the Labour Party, unsuccessfully stood for parliament in 1935 and became a left-wing journalist. * Unfit for army service, Foot became acting editor of London's Evening Standard during World War Two and in 1945 won a seat in parliament. * As a Labour backbencher he was an articulate spokesman for the left, advocating nationalisation, nuclear disarmament, disengagement from the Cold War and the alliance with the United States and non-participation in Europe. * He finally joined a Labour government in 1974 when he became Employment Secretary under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. When Wilson resigned in 1976, Foot narrowly lost his bid for the party leadership to James Callaghan who became prime minister.

* Foot became leader of the House of Commons -- arranging the government's parliamentary business -- with the task of keeping afloat an administration which mostly lacked a majority. * In 1980, Callaghan resigned and Foot beat former Chancellor Denis Healey to become party leader. But he was unable to tame Labour's militant left-wingers whose influence was growing. * Foot was a lifelong Plymouth Argyle fan and becoming a director of the football club. In 2003, he was allocated the squad number 90 and regarded as an honorary player. * He wrote a number of books including biographies of Aneurin Bevan and writer H.G Wells. * Foot was married to Jill Craigie from 1949 until her death in 1999. She had in her own right a successful career as a film-maker and writer. The couple brought up Craigie's daughter by a previous marriage. (For main story please click on ADVERTISEMENT Michael Foot, former Labour leader, dies aged 96 - Telegraph Labour Michael Foot, former Labour leader, dies aged 96 Michael Foot, the former leader of the Labour party, has died aged 96 at his home in north London.

By Andrew Porter , Political Editor 8:19PM GMT 03 Mar 2010 Follow Baroness Thatcher, who faced Mr Foot in many fiery clashes across the despatch box in the House of Commons, said she was "very sorry to hear the news" of his death. In a statement released by her office, Lady Thatcher said: "He was a great parliamentarian and a man of high principles." Gordon Brown described Mr Foot as "a man of deep principle and passionate idealism and one of the most eloquent speakers Britain has ever heard." His death was announced to the House of Commons by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who told MPs the news would be received "with great sadness not only in my own party but across the country as a whole". Mr Foot died shortly before 7am on Wednesday morning at his home in Hampstead, sources said. He had been ill for some time with fading health and had been receiving 24-hour care.

Related Articles Tony Benn writes on the death of Michael Foot 03 Mar 2010 He led the Labour party through one of its bitterest and most unsuccessful periods from 1980 until he was defeated comprehensively in the 1983 general election. Mr Foot was elected to the Commons in 1945 having first stood as a Labour candidate in 1935. In 1980, he beat off a challenge from Denis Healey to win the party leadership, but the party remained committed to a left-wing agenda. The 1983 general election manifesto, described by Gerald Kaufman as "the longest suicide note in history", included a commitment to nuclear disarmament and a host of other policies that were a gift to a rampant Conservative party under Mrs Thatcher who had also just won the Falklands War. Mr Foot agreed with the decision to send the task force to the South Atlantic despite opposition from some of his own MPs. Mr Foot was born in Plymouth in 1913 and first became MP for Plymouth Devonport in 1945, before becoming MP for Ebbw Vale and Blaenau Gwent.

He was Employment Secretary in the 1974-76 Labour government under Harold Wilson and went on to become Leader of the Commons between 1976 and the 1979 general election. Mr Foot was famously derided for wearing what was characterised as a donkey jacket at a Cenotaph remembrance ceremony, although he always insisted he had sported a smart car coat. Although his appearance was often mocked, his oratory inside and outside the Commons was famed. He was succeeded as Labour leader by his prodigy and fellow Welshman Neil Kinnock, who took on the hard left and sowed the seeds of New labour. Mr Foot was married to Jill Craigie, the author and feminist historian, who died in 1999. He remained an enthusiastic supporter of Plymouth Argyle. BBC News - Lord Kinnock: "The Labour party owes Michael a huge debt" Page last updated at 17:36 GMT, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 Lord Kinnock: "The Labour party owes Michael a huge debt" Advertisement Lord Kinnock succeeded Michael Foot as Labour party leader following the party's catastrophic election defeat in 1983.

He said Foot had done more than most to keep the party together when it risked falling apart. Copyright © 2016 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. BBC News - 'Loss' felt as Michael Foot dies 'Loss' felt as Michael Foot dies Michael Foot took over from James Callaghan and was replaced by Neil Kinnock The former Ebbw Vale MP and Labour Party leader Michael Foot has died, aged 96. He was described as "a real giant" by First Minister and leader of Labour in Wales Carwyn Jones and "hugely loved" by former First Minister Rhodri Morgan. His passing was described as "a loss to the political culture of Wales" by Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones.

Mr Foot, who succeeded Nye Bevan in 1960 in the Ebbw Vale constituency, died at his home in Hampstead, London. He was elected Labour leader in 1980, succeeding Cardiff MP Jim Callaghan, but he stood down as leader after losing the 1983 election to Margaret Thatcher. Mr Foot, a prolific writer who wrote a biography on Bevan, handed over leadership of Labour to Neil Kinnock. Mr Foot was first elected to Parliament in 1945 and was an MP for 47 years. He may have been born in Plymouth but he was a giant of Welsh politics. Former constituents' tributes to Foot He succeeded his friend and inspiration, Aneurin Bevan, as MP for Ebbw Vale in 1960, and represented the seat for 32 years, stepping down in 1992. One of the great political orators, he nevertheless led Labour to its worst defeat in 50 years at the 1983 election. But his rebellious spirit, his passion and loyalty endeared him to many in Wales.

The left-wing manifesto he put to the public advocated higher personal taxation, more government intervention in industry and unilateral nuclear disarmament. It was famously dubbed "the longest suicide note in history" by Labour MP Gerald Kaufman. Foot had earlier had to deal with splits in his party, as the so-called 'Gang of Four' left to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). It's very sad news and marks the passing of someone who was a real giant both within the Labour party and in Britain as a whole First Minister Carwyn Jones The son of a solicitor and Liberal MP, Michael Foot had been President of the Oxford Union and editor of Lord Beaverbrook's London Evening Standard before he entered parliament as MP for Plymouth in Labour's 1945 landslide. His first attempt to enter the Commons had been at a Welsh seat, Monmouth, at the 1935 general election. As an MP he pressed for a more radical agenda, especially in defence policy, and was a founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He was NHS founder Bevan's most prominent ally on the left of the Labour Party until they fell out when Bevan renounced unilateral disarmament at the 1957 Labour conference.

Their friendship survived, and Foot was eventually to write Bevan's biography. Foot's opposition to defence spending led to the whip being withdrawn from him in 1961 and he was outside the Labour fold for two years. His passing is a loss to the political culture of Wales Leader of Plaid Cymru, Ieuan Wyn Jones AM Although the whip was restored, he refused to serve in Harold Wilson's first two administrations, as he opposed Labour's policies on Vietnam, pay restraint and the Common Market. After Labour's general election defeat of 1970, Foot agreed to become a frontbencher. He became Harold Wilson's Secretary of State for Employment in 1974, in which role he famously faced down anger in Ebbw Vale over steel job losses. He first stood for the leadership when Wilson resigned in 1976, losing to James Callaghan. As deputy leader of Callaghan's government Foot was in charge of the first devolution proposals for Wales. The young Michael Foot He spoke late in life of his sadness when the Welsh public gave his government what he called a "bloody nose" by voting down those proposals on 1 March 1979.

But he said: "It never changed my views of devolution in that Welsh people, and those in other parts of the UK, should be able to determine locally with their votes on how they are governed on many issues." Following the announcement of his death, tributes were paid to Michael Foot. Welsh Labour leader and First Minister, Carwyn Jones, said: "It's very sad news obviously and marks the passing of someone who was a real giant both within the Labour party and in Britain as a whole. "Michael Foot held many of the major offices in cabinet and, of course, he was a Welsh MP representing Ebbw Vale from the by-election that was held after Aneurin Bevan died in 1960 and, of course, Blaenau Gwent until he retired - so his loss will be very much felt." Tributes Plaid Cymru's leader Ieuan Wyn Jones AM said: "Michael Foot was a man of principle and a great Parliamentarian who commanded respect across the political divide. "It was my privilege and pleasure to have known him and to have served in Westminster at the same time as him where I learnt much from his wealth of knowledge and commitment to social justice.

Advertisement Lord Kinnock's tribute to mentor "Michael Foot was also a great devolutionist and I know that he was delighted when the people of Wales said 'yes' to the creation of a National Assembly in 1997 despite wanting a more powerful parliament for Wales. "His passing is a loss to the political culture of Wales." Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain said: "Michael was perhaps Wales' most brilliant adopted son. "A good friend, he gave me much personal support over 40 years, from the anti-apartheid movement to our work together on the Tribune newspaper. "He will be sorely missed. Never again will we see such soaring oratory, socialist passion and wit. Wales and Welsh Labour are in mourning." 'Leadership' Torfaen MP Paul Murphy, a former Welsh and Northern Ireland Secretary, said Michael Foot was one of the greatest socialists of all time. "He had a real understanding of the people of the Welsh valleys and was proud to be an adopted Welshman," he said. "He led the party through especially difficult times, and I have no doubt that the party would have fractured had it not been for his leadership.

"He was a distinguished Leader of the House and Secretary of State for Employment and many consider him one of the finest parliamentary orators of the 20th Century." Former First Minister Rhodri Morgan said Mr Foot was a "unique character of the British parliament and political system" who was a "stunningly good parliamentary performer". 'Towering intellectual' He said: "He was hugely loved in Wales and hugely loved throughout Britain and even loved by his opponents as well." Wayne David, MP for Caerphilly and Wales Office Minister, said: "Michael Foot was one of the most significant politicians of our time. He was a great orator, a towering intellectual, a wonderful writer and a man of principle and integrity. "As a young man I well remember the encouragement I received from him and the inspiration I gained from reading his two volume biography of Aneurin Bevan. The Labour movement has today lost one of its great figures." Welsh Conservatives leader Nick Bourne said: "Michael Foot was a parliamentarian of great skill. He was a distinguished man of letters and made a significant contribution to British public life.

"Even in the latter part of his life, he was still the old warhorse and actively campaigned in the Blaenau Gwent by-election. "His death breaks a link with the political past but his contribution to national life will not be forgotten." Here are a selection of your memories and tributes of Michael Foot. A great, great man. One of the last great politicians Passionate & principled RIP Michael Stephen Carlsson-Overy, Dartford, UK Three encounters with this unique and marvellous leader. First, at the 1966 Aberafan National Eisteddfod, shortly after Gwynfor Evans won Carmarthen for Plaid Cymru, I met Michael looking mildly disoriented in the National Trust exhibition, and conducted him to HTV for a cup of tea. Second, in 1970, when he helped us launch the Wales Labour Paper "Radical" at the lamented Cory Hall in Cardiff. Third, in 1996, when I was catching a flight in Geneva to Bosnia, his unmistakable figure with cane was at the bus stop trying to work the ticket machine. So I gave him mine. The privilege of small encounters with a giant of our times.

Gareth Howell, Washington DC USA Behind him a few times in the 1970s..The last TRUE socialist leader of the Labour Party..God bless you Michael..R.I.P. Stefan Wozniak, Alloa; Scotland Whilst a young university student I spent the summer of 1992 working at Garden Festival Wales. One day it was my duty to drive Sir Philip Weekes and Michael Foot around the site and up to the Mountain Farm Cafe. On arrival at the cafe, to my great surprise, Mr Foot insisted I join them for afternoon tea and spent a good hour questioning me on university and my future and telling me more about what the festival meant to Ebbw Vale and the wider community. A real privilege I shall not forget! Philip Lawson, Cardiff Wales A truly brilliant man, a fantastic orator and an inspiration to all of us who are politically 'independent' in politics. I am proud to say that many of his aspirations for Wales and in particular his constituents of Ebbw Vale - are still being pursued today.

Kevin Brown, Brynmawr I'll always remember him striding across Hampstead Heath with stick in hand and his dog Dizzy - he always gave us a smile and when we had the cheek to ask him to sign our programme at one of the Kenwood Open Air Concerts where he was in the audience with his wife Jill, he was of course incredibly gracious and did so. There will never be another like him. Gill French, Dorking, Surrey I met Michael Foot when he visited the secondary school I attended in Manchester. He was genuinely interested in our achievements & had many a kind word of inspiration to spur us on. A memory that has and will remain with me. Neil Roberts, Gloucestershire, UK Michael Foot was an inspiration to many of us as younger members. When I first joined the Young Socialist in 1967, Michael was one of the few Labour MPs that encouraged us to become involved in the broader Labour movement. And this was despite the "Militant" nature of some of us at that time. As party Leader he suffered ridicule from the media but came through it with dignity and principled integrity.

Jeff Cuthbert AM, Caerphilly, Wales I have very fond memories of Michael Foot, especially his ability to "connect" with people of all ages I was at a Labour organised pop concert in Cardiff Student's Union some years ago when Michael addressed a generally young audience. He captivated them and received a standing ovation. He was a great socialist. John Lewis, Kidwelly, Wales A brilliant orator and a skilled politician who managed to prevent a catastrophic lurch into far left politics which would have left Labour unelectable, left a legacy of commitment to peace and social justice which will endure. gareth davies, Blaenavon, Wales Michael was one of the true liberals of our age who, like his father, traced his creed back to the great popular movements and figures of British history, from Cromwell to Bevan and even recognised the efforts towards social justice made by more unlikely, Tory mavericks such as Disraeli. We have lost someone who kept alight the torch of Democratic Socialism during its darkest days of Thatcherism. That he did so with dignity and intellectualism that may have been lost on many was not his fault.

Indeed, we have yet to grow to a time when his principles may be embraced. I will return to my Hazlitt to remember him. David Edwards, Maidenhead, England The back of Mr Foot's residential home was at the back of our home when I was an infant and junior. I remember that he was a very nice man and it's evident he worked very, very hard. R.I.P Kevin Davidge, Tredegar, South Wales UK Another one of the few remaining last great socialists has gone. A courageous and kindly gentleman. It was an honour and a pleasure to meet him on a number of occasions both here in his native Plymouth and in London also. He will always be remembered with admiration, affection and gratitude. Bernard Brotherton., Plymouth, UK. I attended a "right to work" march through Liverpool in the late 70s during the Thatcher regime, i will never forget talking to Michael Foot that day and being inspired by his words and his commitment to socialism, i marched head high that day, and every day since, thank you Michael R.I.P.

Bill McCaffrey, Manchester, England Michael Foot obituary | Politics | The Guardian Michael Foot Michael Foot obituary Principled leader who held Labour together in the early 1980s, and a writer devoted to the cause of freedom Michael Foot in 1982. He led the Labour party to a heavy election defeat the following year. Photograph: Jane Bown Mervyn Jones Wednesday 3 March 2010 08.41 EST First published on Wednesday 3 March 2010 08.41 EST Share on Messenger Close In a long career, Michael Foot , who has died aged 96, served the Labour party as its leader in opposition from 1980 to 1983, as deputy leader, and as a cabinet minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. He graced the Commons as an independent-minded backbencher, and was widely acclaimed as one of the most principled British politicians of his era. A distinguished journalist and author, he devoted his life not only to the rights and traditions of parliament, but to freedom in all its aspects.

During Wilson's first government (1964-70), Foot had been a fierce backbench critic on issues ranging from wage restraint to Vietnam and Rhodesia. However, when Labour lost power to Edward Heath's Conservative government, Foot accepted a place on the opposition front bench and carried the burden of the fight against British entry into the European Economic Community. With Labour back in office again from February 1974 and submitting renegotiated terms to a European referendum in 1975, he campaigned for a no vote. Uniquely, cabinet ministers were allowed to campaign on opposite sides. Foot was then secretary of state for employment, and won an unexpected reputation for administrative ability. When he left the department, a civil servant paid him a memorable, backhanded compliment: "You posed a quite exceptional challenge to my powers of obstruction." In two years, Foot restored trade union rights lost in the Tory industrial relations act of 1971, legitimised the closed shop against furious opposition from Fleet Street, created the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) and the Health and Safety Executive, and played a major role in forging the "social contract" between the government and the unions.

In 1976, however, Wilson retired suddenly, Callaghan defeated Foot in the leadership contest and Foot became – though not formally – deputy prime minister, with the posts of lord president of the council and leader of the Commons. His experience from 1976 to 1979 was in general unhappy, as was that of the government. Byelection defeats cost Labour its majority and its life was prolonged only by deals with the Liberals and other minor parties, which Foot negotiated skilfully but which alienated his erstwhile comrades on the left. Economic problems persisted, unemployment rose and the social contract broke down. Devolution for Scotland and Wales, a project for which Foot worked devotedly, foundered in referendums. After a wave of strikes, remembered as "the winter of discontent", the Tories regained power in 1979 under Margaret Thatcher. Callaghan retired in 1980. In the last leadership election confined to MPs – the party was preparing to switch to an electoral college – Foot narrowly defeated Denis Healey. Many friends and admirers thought him ill-advised to seek the leadership, which indeed brought him no laurels.

But the ultimate judgment may well be that he performed the vital service of holding his party together when it was dangerously polarised between Healey and Tony Benn. He had little chance of further successes. Rejecting his pleas, 25 Labour MPs joined the new Social Democratic party. Also rejecting Foot's pleas, Benn stood against Healey for the deputy leadership, plunging the party into a damaging struggle. As the first Labour leader lacking majority support in the national executive committee, which was dominated by Benn's allies, Foot was deprived of authority. The activities of the Militant Tendency caused constant trouble. Then, in 1982, Thatcher's triumph in the Falklands war ensured her political supremacy. For Foot, the election campaign of 1983 was a disaster. He was hobbled by visible disagreements in Labour's ranks, outflanked by the SDP-Liberal alliance, brutally attacked and ridiculed by the press, and disadvantaged by his age (he was almost 70) and his difficulty in adapting to modern television techniques. At 28%, Labour's share of the poll was the lowest since the 1920s. Foot immediately gave up his party leadership, to be succeeded by Neil Kinnock.

Michael Mackintosh Foot – Mackintosh was his Scottish mother's maiden name – was the fifth of seven children of the phenomenal Isaac Foot, a solicitor by profession, collector of 50,000 valuable books, lord mayor of Plymouth, Liberal MP for two short spells and an ardent Methodist and temperance campaigner. Michael was born at the family home, 1 Lipson Terrace, Plymouth. As the house overlooks Freedom Fields, the site of a civil war battle in which the defenders of the parliamentary cause defeated a royalist attack, it was a fitting birthplace for a man committed to liberty. He was educated at Leighton Park, in Reading, Berkshire, a fee-paying but heterodox school founded by Quakers, and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he took a second-class degree in classics, breakfasted with such visitors as David Lloyd George and Bertrand Russell, and was in 1933 elected president of the union. Four Foot brothers were presidents of either the Oxford or the Cambridge Union. Taking up an uncongenial job with a shipping firm in Liverpool, Foot rebelled against the family liberalism and joined the Labour party.

When a general election was called in 1935, he walked into Labour's headquarters, asked for a list of constituencies that needed candidates, and was adopted the next day for Monmouth. Politics was simpler in those days. He scored a decent vote against an unbeatable sitting Tory. Settling in London and aiming at a career in journalism, he was given a try-out at the New Statesman, but Kingsley Martin, the editor, decided that he was less than brilliant. He joined the staff of Tribune, founded in 1937 by Stafford Cripps as a mouthpiece for his leftwing ideas. Association with Tribune and with Cripps's Socialist League brought Foot two friendships – with Aneurin Bevan, MP for Ebbw Vale, regarded by the younger man with fervent admiration, and with another Tribune writer, Barbara Betts, later and better known after she married as Barbara Castle. In 1938 Cripps arbitrarily sacked Tribune's editor, William Mellor, and offered Foot the job. It was a tempting opportunity for a 25-year-old, but Foot declined to succeed an editor who had been treated unfairly.

Bevan opened the way to another opportunity by mentioning him to Lord Beaverbook as "a young knight-errant" and advising: "Have a look at him." Beaverbrook gave Foot a quick memory test – his recall of anything from byelection figures to Wordsworth sonnets was exceptional – and then work as a feature writer on the London Evening Standard. Then and later, Foot's affection for Beaverbrook embarrassed socialists who saw the proprietor of Express newspapers as the embodiment of reaction and evil. At various times, Beaverbrook paid Foot an inflated salary, sent unexpected cheques, invited him for holidays at his villa on the French Riviera, lent him a cottage on his estate in Surrey, and rescued Tribune when a libel suit threatened it with extinction. Foot was on the Beaverbrook payroll when war came. From the Commons press gallery, he listened to the debate that drove Neville Chamberlain from Downing Street. With Winston Churchill in power, Beaverbrook switched from his support for appeasement to defiance of the Nazi threat, voiced in eloquent Standard leaders written by Foot.

Those leaders were as erudite as they were eloquent, quoting within two months from Pericles, Cato, the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, Edward Gibbon, Louis Saint-Just, Walt Whitman, Giuseppe Mazzini and Joseph Conrad (the "always facing it" passage in Typhoon, deployed again by Foot in a party conference speech in 1975). But it was also time to denounce the politicians who had landed Britain in this peril. Foot and two other Beaverbrook journalists, concealed by the pseudonym "Cato", wrote a 40,000-word book, Guilty Men, over a weekend in 1940. They also sold it from a stall in Farringdon Road, central London, when bookshops refused to stock it. The ultimate sale was an astonishing 200,000. In 1942, Foot became acting editor of the Standard but left it two years later, realising that he and Beaverbrook would be antagonists in postwar politics, and began a column in the Daily Herald.

In 1945, upsetting expert forecasts as thoroughly as the Labour party did at national level, he became MP for the Devonport division of Plymouth. The campaign occasioned his first meeting with Jill Craigie , the documentary film-maker, who was making a film about the rebuilding of heavily bombed Plymouth. They were married four years later. Foot returned to Tribune as editor (1948-52, and again 1955-60) and was soon strongly critical, in its columns and in Commons speeches, of Ernest Bevin's foreign policy. With Richard Crossman and Ian Mikardo, he had produced the 1947 pamphlet Keep Left and started the Keep Left group of backbenchers. But, after holding Devonport in contests with Randolph Churchill in 1950 and 1951, he lost it in 1955 to Joan Vickers. When the result was announced, he said to Jill: "Now I can write that book." The book in question – Foot's fifth, but his first non-topical work – was The Pen and the Sword, a study of an episode in the life of Jonathan Swift.

Foot always straddled the literary and political worlds, and in this period away from Westminster, he thought seriously of concentrating on the former. That year, 1957, he was drawn into passionate controversy over nuclear disarmament. Bevan's repudiation of unilateralism at the party conference that year made Foot its outstanding champion. He was a founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and a regular Aldermaston marcher. Bevan died in 1960, after urging Foot to return to the Commons and telling him: "Perhaps you needn't look further than Ebbw Vale." Foot was selected for the byelection there and won it, at the height of the battle beween CND and Hugh Gaitskell, the party leader, on a unilateralist platform. After taking his seat, he was deprived of the whip for voting against the defence estimates, but it was restored when Gaitskell died in 1963 and Wilson became leader. After stepping down as party leader, Foot stayed in the Commons until 1992.

Although some of his Ebbw Vale constituents had blamed him for the closure of their steelworks in 1975 (when, unfortunately, he was secretary of state for employment), he had been a greatly loved as well as an assiduous constituency MP. He kept, and continued to visit, an old cottage in Tredegar where he had held his surgeries for 31 years. Foot was happy in his marriage to a beautiful and gifted woman (though they regretted the lack of children), in a wealth of friendships, and in an extraordinary range of interests. As a writer, he had three major works to his credit: The Pen and the Sword, his two-volume biography of Bevan (1962 and 1973), and The Politics of Paradise (1988), an impressively scholarly book on Byron. In this sphere, he never retired. He spent three years delving into the life of HG Wells, whom he had read enthusiastically in his youth and met in the 1940s. The result was The History of Mr Wells (1995).

A book on the nuclear arms race – Dr Strangelove, I Presume – warning of conflict between India and Pakistan, appeared in 1999. His last book was The Uncollected Michael Foot (2003). As a young man, Foot was plagued by asthma and eczema. He almost lost his life in a car accident in 1963, which left him with his characteristic, lopsided walk. In 1976, after an attack of shingles, he lost the sight of one eye. Yet he was essentially, as Jill liked to say, "as tough as old boots". She died in 1999. Neil Kinnock writes: Michael was a supreme parliamentary democrat who used his great gifts as an inspiring speaker and writer to urge peace, security, prosperity and opportunity for humanity and punishment for bigots and bullies of every kind. His bravery and generosity were unsurpassed. He used both to ensure that the Labour party survived as a political force when self-indulgent factionalism could have doomed it to irrelevance.

He was a resolute humanist with profound faith in the ability of "free men and women using free institutions" to secure irreversible advances in standards of living and liberty for every country and community. He was a friend to all who strove against want and injustice, an inveterate enemy of exploitation and greed. He was ferocious and funny, principled but never precious, courteous but never deferential, provocative but never vindictive, creative but never abstract. "Describe the challenges by all means," he said, "but don't confuse analysis with action. The one must lead to the other if it is to be useful to people." His passions stretched from his adored wife to Plymouth Argyle, through poets and polemicists of every romantic and rousing kind, and from Mozart to the bouncy melodies of the 1930s – although he was a lousy dancer and a truly appalling singer. Michael gave love and earned love as few politicians do in any age. He was wonderful company, a marvellous comrade, a magnificent man, a great socialist and libertarian. The only tribute that he would want, the only memorial that would do him justice, is enduring application of his values in the cause of progress.

Let us give him that. • Michael Mackintosh Foot, politician, journalist and author, born 23 July 1913; died 3 March 2010 • Mervyn Jones died on 23 February 2010 Labour party leader between 1980 and 1983 dies aged 96. By Michael White Published: 3 Mar 2010 An incorrigible rebel, the former Labour leader failed politically but always followed his mighty heart Published: 3 Mar 2010

Question: Who succeeded Michael Foot as leader of the Labour Party in the UK?
Answer: Neil Kinnock