Eons ago, I covered the TUC conference in the gilded Victorian splendour of the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.
The keynote speaker was Michael Foot (pictured), then leader of the Labour Party. He was stooped and dishevelled – but he delivered a masterclass in political oratory the likes of which it would be hard to imagine now. He told the brothers what they didn’t want to hear – that Labour would impose a pay policy – and got a standing ovation.
It was a speech honed by years of contact with voters on the stump rather than the sanitised TV debates or soundbite politics of today.
Michael Foot was vilified by many during his long life for his political views. After his recent death, no-one had a bad word to say.
How many of us could deserve an epitaph that said simply ‘an unquestionably good man’ – as The Times put it?
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