Michael Foot
There’s an odd irony about the descriptions of the late Michael Foot arising from the way in which the tributes coalesce around the theme of the “man of principle”. The description is fair and it helps to explain why Foot was also a monumentally incompetent politician.
In the days when Foot was up against Margaret Thatcher, the Tory leader shrewdly cast herself as a “conviction politician.” The label should never stick to any politician as electorally successful as Thatcher. If there was a conviction politicians operating in the 1983 general election (a wipeout win for the Tories), it was Foot, who adopted a manifesto which blithely ignored the wishes, prejudices and plainly obvious inclinations of the large majority of voters. One senior colleague of Foot’s christened the Labour manifesto “the longest suicide note in history.”
Mrs Thatcher (as she then was) was, by contrast, a carefully pragmatic trimmer who adjusted to the winds and tides of public opinion. She gave you the impression that she never took any notice of an opinion poll. In private, she was an acute analyst of the numbers.
Foot was honest. Thatcher spun a myth. She won.
