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“... next day. Having gained strong support from most of the Labour Party, and especially its leader Michael Foot, the Thatcher Government was able to continue and enhance its plans for a military response, the first units of the task force sailing for the South Atlantic two days later. For the first two Weeks after the task force sailed, the great majority ...”

“... fair game. We should also remember that the last Oxford-educated man to lead the Labour Party was Michael Foot and that its last Oxford-educated prime minister was Harold Wilson. About Wilson’s leadership people can differ – I think it was by no means as bad as many have argued – but Foot’s leadership, as ...”

“... riots. In the adjournment debate on ‘Civil Disturbances’, MPs as far apart as Joan Lestor and Michael Heseltine agreed that the speeches had transcended party politics. Of course there were exceptions. No Tory MP joined Stuart Holland and John Fraser in their criticism of the Police in Brixton, and no Labour MP supported Winston Churchill’s call for an ...”

“... left-wing socialist council? But it is the issue of ‘extra-Parliamentary activity’ cited by Michael Foot at the time of his original repudiation of Tatchell’s candidature which is of particular interest to the political theorist. (At the time I subscribed to the theory that Foot, old dodderer that he was, had ...”

“... and sense of fun, less than the most listened-to member of Cabinet. The man she admires most is Michael Foot, while transmitting her satisfaction at his gradual education in the responsibilities of government, and consequent adoption of policies very different from those advocated in savage criticism of Barbara Castle in the late Sixties. But he, above ...”

“... strikingly similar to the one about Corbyn, serialised a book by a KGB defector alleging that Michael Foot had been on the Soviet payroll when he was leader of the Labour Party in the early 1980s. Foot sued and received damages and an apology, although this hasn’t stopped the allegation being repeated since his ...”

“... upset. Aside from Berlin, the only thinkers to survive Gray’s bombardment without a scratch are Michael Oakeshott and Karl Popper. Gray even pays Oakeshott the compliment of quoting him twice: ‘In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor ...”

“... as long as a Conservative government was in power. A handful of rebels was neither here nor there. Michael Heseltine’s extended tract is a measure of how far, under Mrs Thatcher, this expectation remains unfulfilled. The Prime Minister’s abrasive relations with Britain’s European partners have been one of the characteristics of her period in office. For ...”

“... advantage of being the first in the field. Since he (or rather, his selfless literary executor, Michael Foot) shook off the chains of conventional Cabinet secrecy and got volume one into print, there have been successors. Every minister knew, at the time when all these notebooks and tapes were being compiled round poor old Harold Wilson’s Cabinet ...”

“... man in a position made impossible by historical developments, one will not find much in either Michael Leapman’s sympathetic and readable portrait, or John Cole’s lively and good-humoured canter over the events of the last decade, to change one’s mind. The nature of the Labour Party’s – and Kinnock’s – problem was vividly illustrated by what ...”

“... is probably unique in his lack of conventional qualifications for the job. George Lansbury and Michael Foot, the former Labour leaders he most resembles, had been cabinet ministers; Foot was Callaghan’s deputy in the 1976-79 government. Corbyn’s lack of conventional qualifications, however, is the reason he ...”

“... is an account of a strange and shocking encounter between Koestler and Jill Craigie, the wife of Michael Foot. One morning in 1952 Craigie had driven Koestler around Hampstead Heath on yet another of his house-hunting expeditions, which degenerated into a pub crawl, though Craigie drank only ginger beer. Afterwards Koestler bullied Craigie into making ...”

“... Has he betrayed his office by breaking confidence and revealing the backstage manoeuvres of Michael Foot and others? Yes, but the revelations are of interest in that they indicate a secret system. Whether they are accurate is another question, of more interest to Mr Foot and his friends than it is to the rest of ...”

“... There is another question on which I am out of line, this time in disagreement with my old friend Michael Foot. Five 20th-century prime ministers and one non-premier (Joseph Chamberlain) have statues in the lobby of the House of Commons: Balfour, Asquith, Lloyd George, Churchill and Attlee. The inclusion of Joseph Chamberlain seems rather odd unless it ...”

“... was boredom. Most people were interesting first time round. ‘Wednesday 9 July 1941: Lunched with Michael Foot, whom I liked very much. He hated and hates Chamberlain even more than I. His views, though a trifle too leftist, are sound.’ But they did not turn out to be permanently palatable. ‘Friday 3 October 1952: After dinner we watched a political ...”