Report from David Renton
Published: 30/07/04
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The lion of the left I last heard Paul Foot speak at the Marxism event in central London in July. His topic was New Labour. Foot mocked Tony Blair ('for the purpose of this meeting, let me call him Tweedledee') and Gordon Brown ('Tweedledum'). What struck me most about Paul Foot that night was that for the first time in five years, he seemed to have recaptured his ้lan. Here was a man at ease with himself, in tune with his audience, content. We did not know that Foot's last book, a history of the popular struggles for the vote, had been sent to the publishers just a few days before. Paul that night was funny, relaxed. Within a week he had died from a heart attack, while travelling on a family holiday to Ireland. Here was a man who acted as the public representative of the British left, who edited Socialist Worker in its most exciting years, who was for over a decade the campaigning heart of the Daily Mirror. Paul Foot was the journalist who publicised injustice after injustice, including the attempts of his own employer to break the recognised staff union, the socialist who stood for Mayor of Hackney and came third. Two thousand attended Paul's funeral at Golders' Green. Billy Hayes was there, the leader of the postal workers' union, the lawyer Mike Mansfield, David Shayler, the Observer's Nik Cohen, Tariq Ali, Bruce Kent, a busload from Private Eye. But more striking still were the dozens of local activists from a hundred forgotten campaigns: squeezed into a suit, Diarmud, who won the argument for welcome in Kensal Green when the anti-asylum hysteria was at its height, Rusty who helped to organise the road sweepers for Hackney UNISON, anti-fascists from Burnley their hair dyed red. Paul's three sons spoke, John, Tom, Matt, as did Jim Nichol, Richard Ingrams and Lindsey German. We stood beside the great red brick crematorium and I felt Paul's story slip from the present into history. 'Paul was the voice of the miners in 84-5', Nichol told us, 'I remember marching with him to Hyde Park, on the great demonstrations, eight years later. Everywhere, there were miners, coming up to him, asking to shake his hand.' Richard Ingrams told us that he still believed James Hanratty must be innocent, 'If Paul believed it, then it must be true.' John Foot talked about his father's heroes, Shelley, C.L.R. James, Louise Michel. So much of Paul Foot's story is known. His father was Lord Caradon, the British governor of Palestine and then Cyprus. Sent to Shrewsbury public school and then university, Foot became President of the Oxford Union. His real schooling began later, in Glasgow, where Paul came into contact with the local Young Socialists, the most radical of whom were already moving into the orbit of the International Socialists. Paul was won over to socialism by Tony Cliff, the founder of the IS. 'Cliff always used to say to me, Paul, you know your problem you're too soft'. Paul was expected to become a Labour MP, and editor of the New Statesman before the age of thirty. To his enormous credit, he refused to conform. Instead, there were long periods of activism, working on Socialist Worker. Foot's books proclaimed the innocence of the Bridgwater Four and Michael Hanratty, they exposed the limitations of Wilson-era Labourism, the hypocrisy of Enoch Powell. His last years saw various attempts to reclaim Paul for the moderate left. After leaving the Mirror, he was given back old columns at the Guardian and Private Eye. He was made Campaigning Journalist of the Decade. In the same spirit, various obituaries attempted to distinguish between the 'good' Paul Foot (Mirror journalist) and his alter ago, who gave up so much of his time to unpopular causes including the Socialist Workers Party. Even in his Mirror days, however, there was a unity between's Foot's socialism and his campaigning journalism. The Mirror column made an open case against the iniquities of private ownership. The public meetings at which he spoke provided a stream of new faces, contacts, and stories from below. I have a friend who briefly joined the International Marxist Group in the early 1970s, but left them shortly after for the IS. Foot was a large part of that process. 'You'd go to a meeting, and Tariq was speaking or Robin Blackburn. They loved the thrill, the audience, being the star. The moment, the meeting finished, and they'd rush off home. Footie was different. He'd wait afterwards and talk, all through the evening, trying to persuade you to get involved, that you could make a difference.' In later years, Foot always seemed to be drifting away from commitment, citing his children, thinking perhaps also of Plymouth Argyle. But for all the appearance of distance, he was secretly goading on the younger comrades looking for another angle, an event, any strike even the smallest dispute would give him strength. Four years ago, he suffered a series of heart attacks, and it was not obvious that Foot would survive. It really seemed that he might go any minute. My favourite story dates from this wretched time. Various old school friends appeared at his bedside, Richard Ingrams and Christopher Booker. 'Paul, we must tell you, the prognosis isn't good.' The body barely stirred. 'But we've taken a whip-round, and we've got enough to send you private'. No words. 'Do it Paul, or you'll die.' Foot was too ill to speak. But a hand slowly lifted itself above the sheets, signalling defiance with two fingers. 'Don't moan', Jim Nichol urged us, as we left the building, 'Organize!'
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