Michael Foot

Michael Mackintosh Foot is a British politician, son of the politician Isaac Foot. He was leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983.

Sourced

• Think of it! A second chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs.
  • House of Commons speech (3 February 1969).

• How long will it be before the cry goes up: "Let's kill all the judges"?
  • Attacking the National Industrial Relations Court and its President, Sir John Donaldson, in a speech at the Scottish Miners' Gala in Edinburgh (3 June, 1972).

• I certainly think that a Labour Government will have to have effective powers to control the outflow of capital.
  • On Election Call (21 February, 1974).

• Some fool or some trigger happy judicial finger.
  • On the NIRC Judge Sir John Donaldson (Hansard, 7 May 1974, Col. 239).

• [There are] judges who stretch the law...to suit reactionary attitudes.
  • On ITV's People and Politics (9 May, 1974).

• The crisis afflicting this country, along with other countries of the Western world, is a crisis of capitalism. It is a crisis of the dominant economic system that prevails in all those countries.
  • Speech to the House of Commons (Hansard, 20 January 1976, Col. 1126).

• I've been on the left of the Party since I joined it about 1934 and I haven't seen much reason for altering...I have always been a strong libertarian both inside the Labour Party and outside...what I want to seek to do over a period of course is to establish a Socialist society.
  • On BBC's Panorama (22 March, 1976).

• It's impossible to write the history of freedom in this country without telling how trade unions have contributed to it.
  • On the ITV's Weekend World (4 April, 1976).

• It does so happen to be the case that if the freedom of the people of this country—and especially the rights of trade unionists—if those precious things in the past had been left to the good sense and fairmindedness of judges, we would have precious few freedoms in this country.
  • Speech to the Union of Post Office Workers at Bournemouth (15 May, 1977).

• It is not necessary that every time he rises he should give his famous imitation of semi-house-trained polecat.
  • Speech in the House of Commons, 2 March 1978, referring to Norman Tebbit

• Of all the sights and sounds which attracted me on my first arrival to live in London in the mid-thirties, one combined operation left a lingering, individual spell. I naturally went to Hyde Park to hear the orators, the best of the many free entertainments on offer in the capital. I heard the purest milk of the world flowing, then as now, from the platform of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
  • Debts of Honour, 1980.

• Since the matter has been raised, can I say, Mr Speaker, that the individual concerned is not an endorsed member– [jeering] .. the individual concerned is not an endorsed member of the Labour Party, and so far as I am concerned never will be an endorsed member?
  • In the House of Commons, 3 December 1981, referring to Peter Tatchell. Foot subsequently corrected "endorsed member" to "endorsed candidate".

• 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.
  • Speech before the 1983 General Election.

• The right hon. Member for Heseltine-- [Laughter.] --well, that is what he is ; he sticks to that principle more than he does to Henley
  • In the House of Commons, 26 March 1991, referring to Michael Heseltine. MPs are referred to in the House by the constituency they represent rather than by their name, so Mr Heseltine would be "Rt. Hon. Member for Henley". Whether by accident or intent, Foot mixed this up in a way which clearly amused other MPs.