Michael Foot
Guy Potger wrote:
Don't make me say "leg-end in his own lifetime". No, really, don't.
Guy Potger wrote:
Heel be at peace at last.
-
-
Michael Foot
So it's come to pedestrian humor.Comment
-
Michael Foot
Why on Earth... wrote:
And despite the fact he's dead, guess who's still at it.His views were what motivated the assassination.Comment
-
Michael Foot
It's interesting, reading the 1983 Manifesto now.
Large bits of it are totally uncontroversial now - indeed there are substantial chunks of the "Emergency Program For Action" at the start which would probably fit comfortably on a Cuddly Dave manifesto. Lots of it has come about through the actions of the present government, in areas like education, equality, and the like (to continue a discussion from another thread, I note with amusement that the "unprecedented" right-wing New Labour plan to link higher education to industry was foreshadowed by the 1983 promise to "strengthen the links between research by higher education and industry to help greater industrial innovation".) That said, it's hard to credit the claim in the opening section that everything in there was costed and financially attainable in a five-year Parliament, because there is clearly an awful lot of new spending being promised.
What does sound archaic - and must have sounded archaic even in 1983 - is all the stuff about getting out of the EEC, slapping on exchange controls, price controls and inserting the government into basically any industrial decision about capital investment or training (often through corporatist tri-partite arrangements). It's almost as if, nostalgic for the great Labour accomplishments of 1945-1951, the party felt it needed to bring back wartime economic controls as well - or even, in fact, that social democracy was actually impossible without wartime planning controls.
I have no understanding of whether the '83 manifesto was an accurate reflection of Foot's views, or whether it was imposed on him from the left. But having defended it you can certainly see why he was derided as being "yesterday's man". The manifesto was certainly one for "yesterday's economy".Comment
-
Michael Foot
Just for clarification. The issue which was referred to on previous threads as "unprecedented" was not the"linking" higher education to industry, which could be seen as progressive then and as relatively uncontroversial now but to subordinate the values and purpose of higher education to the short term requirements of industry, as defined by industry itself. This has been criticised by academics from both science and arts, who also find it relevant that "the government department that is supposed to represent our interests has neither ‘education’ nor ‘university’ in its title." to quote from the latest issue of the London Review of Books.
There are endless articles outlining the issues by Nobel Prizewinners, a petition with 25000 signatures including the most eminent scientist in Britain, and strong criticism from Europe and the USA
Excellent blogging by Iain Pears (detective novelist and former financial journalist) here on background to the events at Kings and how a Principal can double his salary in less than five years..Comment
-
Michael Foot
The EC commitment was jacked by 1987. Did it look daft in 1983? Probably, yes- where were the fruits of the export drive to go, and why would nobody else stick on tarifs?
Exchange controls had been around until Thatcher, I think. So I presume they could have been reintroduced.Comment
-
Michael Foot
Nef...you do realise that the proposed HEFCE research funding metrics paper was being written long before universities were transferred to a new department, right? And that the heinous example of a principal doubling his salary occurred in the beautiful olden days when universities were under a Department with the word Education in the title? Are you trying to draw some causal link between the three or is your point simply that things are generally going to hell in a handbasket?Comment
-
Michael Foot
I'm wondering whether people will similarly, in the future, look back at the manifestos of today and think they, too, were being written for "yesterday's economy", with their strange veneration of a market that's failed.Comment
-
Michael Foot
Antonio Gramsci wrote:
Yes I realise all of these things- I was pointing out the difference between making Univiersities making links with industry (as proposed by the Michael Foot manifesto in 1983) and the complete subordination to a short term view of research and further and higher education as proposed by New Labour, including new definitions of research and plans for research funding, and culminating in the transfer of the responsibility between Departments for the management of Universities a(which you consider irrelevant and I think is significant). Pears' analysis of the managerialism at Kings is I think good and relevant - and part of his analysis is how salaries and jobs have multiplied in the managerial class in Universities, (as in many other institutions from the BBC to banks where a managerial kleptocracy has filled its boots regardless of competency) and how there is no real oversight of these managers .Nef...you do realise that the proposed HEFCE research funding metrics paper was being written long before universities were transferred to a new department, right? And that the heinous example of a principal doubling his salary occurred in the beautiful olden days when universities were under a Department with the word Education in the title? Are you trying to draw some causal link between the three or is your point simply that things are generally going to hell in a handbasket?Comment
-
Michael Foot
E10, I think they will indeed think that.
But, leaving aside comparisons with now, what do you think of 1983's platform and the points AG makes?
I think too we need some clarification about "the right" in the party at the time. They'd set the top rate of income tax at 83%, they built lots of social housing etc. True they were hoodwinked by some fashionable economic stuff, but overall their views would be on the left now- see someone like Gwyneth Dunwoody.
Chippy was a bit unkind about the SDP defectors up there. They did indeed do much harm, but there were policy differences behind it rather than just an eccentric hysteria over the Wembley Conference. The conference made it less likely they'd achieve their policy aims, that's why they left.Comment
-
Michael Foot
E10 Rifle wrote:
Mmmm...but the bit of the market that failed was primarily the financial sector, right? I'm not a connoisseur of manifestos, but my impression is that over the past few elections, they haven't said much about the issue of the financial sector and its growing dominance within the UK economy. I think it's the *silence* about this that will seem startling, not the veneration (although perhaps one could say that the silence was due to veneration, I'm not sure).I'm wondering whether people will similarly, in the future, look back at the manifestos of today and think they, too, were being written for "yesterday's economy", with their strange veneration of a market that's failed.Comment
-
Michael Foot
RIP. A quality man who surely shows the current Labour lot up for what they really are.
My only contacts with the Foot family were while working in Hampstead when Id regularly say hello to him while walking from Hampstead Heath station as he walked his dog in the Willow Rd/ Gayton Rd area.
Plus his nephew PM'd me on OTF once when I was a tad cruel with a flippant remark in a thread concerning his "Calcio Italian Football History" book.Comment
-
Michael Foot
For a few days only, the iPlayer has the first ever episode of Question Time, including Michael Foot:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rmzjg/Michael_Foot_on_Question_Time/
I've only just seen the start, and almost yacked up at the absurd reverence for the Pope. Even "non nonsense Scot", Teddy Taylor, "can't help but be impressed by him".
Foot's answer on Northern Ireland doesn't sound particularly hard left.Comment
-
Michael Foot
There's one question about benefit payments to strikers, and having special mobile benefit offices to process payments more quickly.
Different times.Comment
-
Michael Foot
This is well worth watching actually. Much gentler than it is now, with a nice illustration of the debates that followed. Foot (quite rightly) is keen to get the word "socialist" in- to libraries, WW2. Possibly even then, it was a word your special adviser would tell you not to use.
I'm very taken with the Irish author on there. Check out her rather risque answer to the last (fun) question.Comment
-
Michael Foot
Tubby Isaacs wrote:
Norman Tebbit, who was very influential in the early 80s Thatcher Govt, made a point of trying to associate or equate "socialism" with "national socialism" in the public mind and unfortunately he was at least partly successful; it did seem to suggest totalitarianism to dafties, as anyone who went out canvassing for Labour in the 80s will remember. He had a bit of a thing about Mr Foot, describing him as a "red fascist" "social fascist" etc. etc. from the late 70s onwards. "Polecat" was far too kind a description (of Tebbit by Foot).Foot (quite rightly) is keen to get the word "socialist" in- to libraries, WW2. Possibly even then, it was a word your special adviser would tell you not to use.Comment
-
Michael Foot
Tubbs, this can't be the first time Edna O'Brien has appeared on your radar, surely? I mean, I know she doesn't wear a toga and hang around the Forum two thousand years ago or owt, but still, I'd have thought...
Mind, I'd forgotten she was so glamorous in them days.
Anyway, I'm not sure whether MsD and I have fully made up, but either way, What She Said about canvassing for Labour in the 80s. There really was a lot of "We don't want all this socialism, we don't want all these unions, we don't want all this nationalisation." So the whole "modernisation" thing didn't come from nowhere: it really did seem like a very uphill struggle winning voters over to Old Labour.
In that context, it's interesting that in the mid-90s, Blair continued to use the word "socialism" about his programme right up to, and beyond, the point where it became obviously ludicrous. He must have felt it was less offputting to floating voters than it was valuable as a way of keeping the "base" onside. Bizarre, the power of a word, even one with such an unstable referent.Comment
-
Michael Foot
It's absolutely the first time she's been on my radar.
That rings a bell about Tebbit. I remember an interview with him in the Independent from about 1994 where he said Hitler was a socialist.
Neil Kinnock was fond of describing himself as a "democratic socialist". Presumably others like Tony Benn are not democrats. And it did sound (intentionally?) like Social Democrat.Comment
-
Michael Foot
It was quite deliberate, Tebbit would mention "Hitler and his National Socialists" apropos of not much at all, so people who hadn't studied history or politics and hitherto had not known the full name of the Nazi party suddenly made this connection.Comment
-
Michael Foot
Bloody hell, good spot. That's the kind of thing you pay your license fee for. I'm going to watch that straight away.For a few days only, the iPlayer has the first ever episode of Question Time, including Michael FooComment
-
Michael Foot
Cheers. It was on BBC Parliament originally. I've no doubt missed far more good stuff than I've caught on there but I've caught some old general election nights on there (several hours long), and the 1982 Falklands debate. Worht keeping an eye on.
Foot sounds a bit fond of WW2 one one of the questions, I thought. Socialism is better defended on the grounds that it makes most people wealth rather than some "poor but happy" position he seems to be sliding towards there.Comment
-
Michael Foot
MsD, here is Tebbit on Foot's death. A quite astonishing pile of crap:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100028735/michael-foots-polecat-jibe-demeaned-him-but-boosted-my-career/Comment
-
Michael Foot
Here's some more shit, published about a minute after Foot died and couldn't sue:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7377111/Was-Foot-a-national-treasure-or-the-KGBs-useful-idiot.htmlComment
Comment