Former Labour leader Michael Foot dies

**JAMC** · 03-03-2010, 04:05 PM

BBC News - Former Labour leader Michael Foot has died

Labour leader from 1980 to 1983, when Thatcherism was in the ascendancy. Also employment secretary under Harold Wilson and leader of the commons during the 70's. Avid nuclear disarmament campaigner and part of Labour's golden generation of 1945.

Stepped down after labour's heaviest defeat in 1983, with election manifesto notorious for being 'the longest suicide note in history'.

Also holds the record for the oldest registered football player after having been assigned an honorary squad number (90, his then age) by Plymouth Argyle.

What then of his place in history?

**Barry** · 03-03-2010, 05:46 PM

Well remembered for turning up at the Cenotaph on Remembrance day in a Duffel coat, although some referred to it as a donkey jacket.
Not that what one wears, necessarily makes one a bad person, because it doesn't.

96 was a good age!

**Opinionated** · 03-03-2010, 06:17 PM

Shame there aren't more like him around now though!
And I've never understood the fuss over the donkey jacket!
To quote a master:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

**Don** · 03-03-2010, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by Opinionated

Shame there aren't more like him around now though!
And I've never understood the fuss over the donkey jacket!

Apparently it was not a 'donkey jacket', and the Queen Mother liked it.

Michael Foot and the donkey jacket that wasn't - Telegraph

**Opinionated** · 03-03-2010, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by Don

Apparently it was not a 'donkey jacket', and the Queen Mother liked it.

Michael Foot and the donkey jacket that wasn't - Telegraph

Damn you Americans not allowing me to claim ownership for even one common yet brilliant man!!!!News flash Lincoln never lived in a log cabin

.

**Don** · 03-03-2010, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by Opinionated

Damn you Americans not allowing me to claim ownership for even one common yet brilliant man!!!!News flash Lincoln never lived in a log cabin

.

Yes he did, we have it on good authority that Lincoln was born in a log cabin that he built with his own hands. So there!!

**Don** · 03-03-2010, 07:57 PM

Ops, "If" seems to be a fitting tribute. Have liked its sentiments from the first time I encountered it. The quoted line below was always my only problem with it. Seems to me, our 'loving friends', are the only ones who can hurt us, certainly not a foe, as that is where one would expect a 'hurt' to come from.

Originally Posted by Opinionated

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,