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Michael Foot

83 quotes

“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.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Debts of Honour, 1980.
“He was without any rival whatever, the first comic genius who ever installed himself in Downing Street”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, Debts of Honour (1980)
“Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for power”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, 'Debts of Honour (1980)
“In my opinion, Marxism is a great creed of human liberation. It is the creed which says that when all other empires fade and vanish, our business is to enlarge the empire of the human mind”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Morning Star, 1980
“Most liberties have been won by people who broke the law”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: interview, 1980
“I first joined the Labour party in Liverpool because of what I saw of the poverty, the unemployment, and the endless infamies committed on the inhabitants of the back-streets of that city. I am horrified that the threat of unemployment and economic misery is now being deployed against the same kind of people once again.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference after his election as Labour leader (10 November 1980), quoted in Simon Hoggart and David Leigh, Michael Foot: A Portrait (1981), p. 57 and The Guardian (11 November 1980), p. 1
“Since the matter has been raised, may I say that the individual concerned is not an endorsed member of the Labour Party, and, so far as I am concerned, never will be endorsed? [Interruption.] May I add that, as the Labour Party has played the leading part in the establishment and sustenance of parliamentary democracy, we do not need any instructions on the matter from skin-deep democrats on the Conservative Benches or defectors on this side?”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark in the House of Commons (3 December 1981), referring to Peter Tatchell. Foot subsequently corrected "endorsed member" to "endorsed candidate".
“She has no imagination and that means no compassion”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Margaret Thatcher, 1981
“I know a fascist when I see one.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to Tam Dalyell at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party after he had criticised Foot's speech in the Falklands debate, quoted in Kenneth O. Morgan, Michael Foot (2007), p. 412
“Think of it, a free Italy: it is the poetry of politics”, wrote Byron at a dark moment in the history of the Italian Risorgimento. Think of it, a free, democratic Socialist Spain – there is surely still some poetry in that kind of politics today, even if it is beyond the imagination of such stunted, pusillanimous souls as Bernard Levin.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to The Times (25 October 1982), p. 11
“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.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech before the 1983 General Election.
“We had not the armour, the strength, the quickness in manoeuvre, yes, the leadership”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: explaining Labour's 1983 election defeat when he was leader in his book Another Heart And Other Pulses, 1984.
“It is all the more necessary that we should prevent an extension of the powers of the European Assembly, however it may be elected. I have been opposed to the extension of those powers, and I remain so. ... We must preserve every precious part of the power that we retain in the House.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (26 June 1986) against the Single European Act
“The right hon. Member for Heseltine—[Laughter.]—well, that is what he is; he sticks to that principle more than he does to Henley.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech 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 fo…
“It's quite a change to have a prime minister who hasn't got any political ideas at all.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On John Major, 1991
“No rising hope on the political scene who offered his services to Labour when I happened to be its leader can be dismissed as an opportunist.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Tony Blair, 1995
“I think the House of Lords ought to be abolished and I don't think the best way for me to abolish it is to go there myself”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his departure from the House of Commons, 1992.
“Even the victor in a just cause is susceptible to the passions which war arouses. Every inhuman feeling is at once exacerbated. Truth, decency, morality, justice are the first casualties in any war. The accumulated effect makes a just settlement impossible. ... The pacifist treasures justice, liberty; but he believes that they can only be lastingly secured by peaceable means and that the use of force will only contaminate them. ... Armaments themselves provide an independent cause of war owing to the suspicion and fear which they breed. ... Unilateral disarmament offers the only way to escape once the policy of collateral disarmament has failed.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article in Young Oxford and War (1934), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (1994), p. 30
“THE ARMAMENTS RACE IN EUROPE MUST BE STOPPED NOW. ... I am not in favour of going to war in order to defend the Foreign Investments of British financiers, or the protective tariffs of British industrialists. ... I am a young man. I appeal to the Youth of the Monmouth Division to consider what the world offers to our generation. WAR and POVERTY are the twin dangers which threaten our chances of a decent, happy life in the World. All over Europe youth is being recruited into the ranks of Fascism. Fascism represents the last attempt of those who control economic power to maintain their supremacy. ... I WANT TO SEE A GOVERNMENT IN THIS COUNTRY WHICH WILL SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE DESERVING MANY, AND NOT THOSE OF THE WEALTHY FEW.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Election address (c. November 1935), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (1994), p. 43
“[T]he England of the Conservative Party...condoned Fascism, consorted with Fascism, connived at imperialist war, abandoned any hope of building a sane and secure international society... Yet there was still another England. This other England detested Fascism from the day of its birth. It fought against the betrayal of Abyssinia. It denounced the policy which led to the massacre of Spain. It struggled in opposition throughout those years to build an international society and it understood that the chief enemy which must be fought was Fascism in whatever guise it might appear and in whatever land it might capture the apparatus of the State. This was the England of the Left, the England of Labour, the England which inherited and adapted to the modern age the European policy which made this country the leader of the nations in the nineteenth century. This England made errors too, but they were errors of a quite different nature from those crimes committed by the men who believed they could reach comfortable terms of settlement with the forces of Fascism which threatened to engulf the continent in a new Dark Ages... It was the resurrection of this other England which saved the world, and the hopes of the European revolution which must follow the defeat of our enemies on the battlefield will depend on which England rules as the fighting subsides.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Trial of Mussolini: Being a Verbatim Report of the First Great Trial for War Criminals Held in London Sometime in 1944 or 1945 (1943), pp. 80-81
“Like it or not, one of the most spectacular events of our age is the comparative success of the Communist economic systems. ... Do you seriously imagine that there is no challenge from the Communist States on this level? And who do you think will win the contest if we stumble on as we are—the Communist States, which are not afraid of full production, or the Western States, which have still never achieved for any considerable period full production and full employment without inflation? Yes, who will win—the Communist States, who are turning out trained technicians at an unexampled pace, or the Western powers, who contentedly spend more on advertising than education?”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Up The Garden', The Spectator (22 January 1960), pp. 8–9
“President de Gaulle is a rebel against American leadership. Some of us who are also rebels have some sympathy with him on that account. ... [O]ne of his long-term aims is to secure a settlement between East and West in Europe. ... The whole situation is altering between East and West. The planet is trembling with alterations and differences in alliances and arrangements. I do not believe in the old configuration of the cold war. ... It is out of date. It is five years, even ten years, out of date. ... [W]e may, whatever may have been his motives and reasons, thank President de Gaulle for doing for us what the British Government had not the courage and energy to do for themselves.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (11 February 1963)
“We in this country, particularly when we are arguing with the people of the United States, have a right to recall the part played by Chatham, Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox, who opposed a war waged by a great nation which did suffer defeat but survived its defeat because it was prepared to admit that the opposition to the war had justice on its side. This is the lesson to be learned. This is the lesson to be learned from these events. Although opinion in the United States may have reached this conclusion for a variety of reasons, just as opinion throughout the world has reached this conclusion for a variety of reasons, the conclusion is all the stronger and more certain. The conclusion is that the military machine of the United States, all-powerful almost though it may be, cannot win a civil war in Indo-China. It can kill. It can destroy. It can defoliate. It can bomb. It can exterminate. It can spread horror and devastation. But it cannot win a victory.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Vietnam War (5 May 1970)
“I have respect for the history of this House. There is nothing reprehensible in people recalling that some of the liberties of the people of this country enshrined in this House go back not merely to the conflicts of the seventeenth century, which will certainly apply to many of the matters with which we have to deal—the power over taxation which resides, or is still to reside, in this House—but to the controversies which prevailed in the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. If people say to me that all these are remote, old-fashioned ideas, I reply that they are as up-to-date as the ideas that brought the Labour Party into being.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the European Communities Bill (17 February 1972)
“What is even more dangerous is to set the cause of internationalism against the claims of freedom and democracy. That is a very dangerous course. What is necessary is that the two claims should be combined, and it is perfectly possible. It is so dangerous to set the cause of Europe against the cause of Parliament, but that is what the Bill does in every contemptible Clause and every pusillanimous subsection. The Bill says that we have to choose between the ideal of entry into Europe on the terms which have been settled by the Government and sustaining our parliamentary freedoms and democratic rights. That is a very dangerous choice.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the European Communities Bill (13 July 1972)
“What I do seek to do is contest the suggestion that the present arguments in the Labour Party can be categorized as those between Social Democrats and Marxists. This strikes me as misleading and indeed politically illiterate, since, historically speaking, many Social Democrats have regarded themselves as Marxists. Moreover, the idea implicit in this false distinction that Marxism is somehow inherently undemocratic or anti-democratic is a perversion of thought and language comparable with that perpetrated by the Stalinists. May I add that those engaged in destroying British Parliamentary democracy by the acceptance of the European Communities Act in all its immeasurable undemocratic manifestations are in no position to "lecture" others about how to preserve British democracy?”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to The Times (30 November 1973), p. 19
“The consequences of withdrawal from the EEC had been exaggerated: he did not accept that Britain's problems could be solved only by our accepting an alien system whose legislative basis – the European Communities Act 1972 – it was to proposed to change. Policies which had stood Britain in good stead, for example on agriculture and the Commonwealth, had already been destroyed by attempts over the last decade to join the EEC. Continued membership would lead to the dismembering of the United Kingdom, and of the authority of Parliament which had already lost much of its power in EEC affairs. If we remained in the Community the seat of power would lie in future in permanent coalition in Brussels.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to the Cabinet (18 March 1975), quoted in Kenneth O. Morgan, Michael Foot (2007), p. 327
“They had been told that those political disabilities, the delegations from our sovereignty and the dismemberment of Britain's parliamentary institutions, must be accepted because of economic circumstances; that there was no choice. But [I] did not believe that. I hope the message which will go out from this conference to our movement up and down the country is, 'Do not let this great Labour movement be afraid of those who tell us that we cannot run our own affairs, that we have not the ingenuity to mobilize our resources and overcome our economic problems'. Of course we have, and we can save our democratic freedom at the same time.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party conference on Britain's membership of the EEC (26 April 1975), quoted in The Times (28 April 1975), p. 4
“Whatever the outcome on June 5, historians looking back, and starting soon I believe, will be amazed that the British people were urged at such a time to tamper irreparably with their most precious institution; to see it circumscribed and contorted and elbowed off the centre of the stage... [W]e are assured that we shall be stronger...if we turn for salvation to institutions not our own, never devised to suit us, and not at all inspired from the sources which have so frequently given this country its renewal of democratic vigour. It is as if in 1940 we had set fire to the place, as Hitler did with his Reichstag. Instead, let it not be forgotten that what Parliament did in 1940 was effectively to throw out one government and put in another. Once we are snugly and irremovably in the Market, that effective power will have been cast away.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Putting Parliament at stake', The Times (23 May 1975), p. 14
“What will once again be the choice at the next election? It will not be so dissimilar from the choice that the country had to make in 1945, or even in 1940 when the Labour Party had to come to the rescue of the country... It was on a motion of the Labour Party that the House of Commons threw out the Chamberlain Government in 1940. It was thanks to the Labour Party that Churchill had the chance to serve the country in the war years. Two-thirds of the Conservative Party at that time voted for the same reactionary policies as they will vote for tonight. It is sometimes in the most difficult and painful moments of our history that the country has turned to the Labour Party for salvation, and it has never turned in vain. We saved the country in 1940, and we did it again in 1945. We set out to rescue the country—or what was left of it—in 1974. Here again in 1979 we shall do the same.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (28 March 1979)
“The rights and the circumstances of the people in the Falkland Islands must be uppermost in our minds. There is no question in the Falkland Islands of any colonial dependence or anything of the sort. It is a question of people who wish to be associated with this country and who have built their whole lives on the basis of association with this country. We have a moral duty, a political duty and every other kind of duty to ensure that that is sustained. The people of the Falkland Islands have the absolute right to look to us at this moment of their desperate plight, just as they have looked to us over the past 150 years. They are faced with an act of naked, unqualified aggression, carried out in the most shameful and disreputable circumstances. Any guarantee from this invading force is utterly worthless—as worthless as any of the guarantees that are given by this same Argentine junta to its own people.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons after Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands (3 April 1982)
“We are paramountly concerned, like, I am sure, the bulk of the House—I am sure that the country is also concerned—about what we can do to protect those who rightly and naturally look to us for protection. So far, they have been betrayed. The responsibility for the betrayal rests with the Government. The Government must now prove by deeds—they will never be able to do it by words—that they are not responsible for the betrayal and cannot be faced with that charge. That is the charge, I believe, that lies against them. Even though the position and the circumstances of the people who live in the Falkland Islands are uppermost in our minds—it would be outrageous if that were not the case—there is the longer-term interest to ensure that foul and brutal aggression does not succeed in our world. If it does, there will be a danger not merely to the Falkland Islands, but to people all over this dangerous planet.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons after Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands (3 April 1982)
“One of the worst aspects of this incursion is the conspiratorial way in which the leaders of the Militant Tendency have sought to operate without a membership and thereby to circumvent the rules of the [Labour] party, with or without any proscribed list. It was for this reason that, on my initiative, we took steps, with the later full backing of the party conference, to exclude the Militant leadership from our ranks. ... The task of freeing the party from Militant and kindred pestilences is not an easy one. But it has to be done, and it has to be done by methods which are fair. I strongly support all the steps which Neil Kinnock has taken to this end.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to The Times (11 December 1985), p. 15