Michael Foot interview | Labour Party |1982

Labour leader Michael Foot speaks to Thames TV's Llew Gardner about the future of the Labour Party and their prospects at the next election.
First shown: 24/06/1982
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Quote: VT27058

[@immaterialimmaterial5195]

Agree with him or disagree with his slant, he is articulate, intelligent, polite, honest, well read, principled and interesting as a speaker. Can't think of many like this in today's brash, tacky world of politics on either side of the divide. What a measured, civilised discussion. Interesting to hear his views on the issues of the day.

[@insertclevername4123]

To borrow a line from the Coen brothers, he was a serious man. It's depressing to have to watch archival videos to see what serious men and women, on both sides of the aisle, used to be like.

[@MrGoneTroppo]

Don't agree with anything he said but a scholar and a gentleman. The reason he lost the 1983 election though is mainly those terrible shoes, women vote!

[@aclark903]

@@MrGoneTroppoHe was already past his sell by date in 82, God rest him.

[@EdMcF1]

Half a lifetime ago, but notice the mature and serious tone of the interview, compared to the present day.

[@lightarmanov6266]

He got slandered for wearing the wrong jacket not shure if thats mature

[@baronmeduse]

@@lightarmanov6266 That was by the Sun.

[@Ray-xh6gb]

He was a great fan of Plymouth

[@Ray-xh6gb]

Nice man sincere but never electable

[@johnrider5701]

At least you knew what he stood for. That's more you can say about Starmer and today's labour party.

[@th8257]

Michael Foot's nephew, the journalist Paul Foot, said that his uncle had become a kind of 'living parenthesis' in this period. He basically had to talk out interviews to stop the interviewer raising really damaging points about the total chaos in the Labour Party at the time.

[@petermutua9838]

I love the sober, issues based discourse in these documentaries...

[@Ray-xh6gb]

Micheal foot scarecrow was never going to let a old man like this run the country he was put there so labour would lose

[@thedoctorand]

22:46 Didn't know Spiderman was involved with politics in the 80's!

[@tomgibson6801]

best prime minster we never had the sense to vote in

[@Mpr91]

Evan Bernard He was literally taking bribes from the kgb.

[@Mpr91]

@@henryblainesilver Yes there is. Read 'The Spy and The Traitor' by Ben Macintyre. Oleg Gordievsky, KGB Double Agent in London, exposed him.

[@Mpr91]

Henry Silver Oleg Gordievsky saw the evidence with his own eyes inside the KGB archives.

[@tomgibson6801]

@inspector morse Thatcher was a fool

[@britndayz]

@@Mpr91 reaction.life/look-evidence-michael-foot-no-kgb-agent/ Give me a list of people you admire i think I can find some dirt on them. Hes been dead for a while now why do they have to spread crap just cuz his opponents hated his guts

[@itsjemmabond]

So this is the guy who Kenny Everett said his stick should be kicked away?

[@WintersWar]

Political animal, but it's calming to listen to the exchange from Brtish professionals.

[@djbobhoskins]

Great that you're uploading all of this but why are you cutting out the titles? It's annoying.

[@Ray-xh6gb]

Healey was a bildeberger

[@tubularbill]

Wow surprised Labour even won 200 seats in 1983….

[@thomashowe1509]

That was shocking to say the least. Thatcher was godlike in 1983, and should have really got at least 400+ seats. It might have been due to distribution of votes relative to seats that saved them. This was Labours worst period in its history and they had an incumbent who beat them badly and it should have been worse

[@crossman3940]

Net worth 1•5 million nice back then

[@syedadeelhussain2691]

reasonably decent politician ! ..now a days only rubbish in and rubbish out. No character left

[@cBearTV-]

Blimey how close are their chairs?!... If one them breathed to deeply or sneezed they'd be playing footsies!! You don't need to sit that closely for a politician interview!! 🤣🤣

[@johnking5174]

This interview was filmed in one of Thames Television's very small studios at Euston Road, maybe one of their smallest 1,000 Sq Ft studios, as they did not want to waste money on a huge set, for what was a 25 minute basic interview.

[@insertclevername4123]

"Unfortunately, due to the budget cuts made necessary by our current economic crisis, we have had to reduce the number of chairs in the studio. Joining on my lap is Michael Foot, leader of the Labour Party. Mr. Foot, the first question is..."

[@David-st1yt]

It's because the TV's were so small in those days.

[@veggie42]

Corbyn like him spoke and had a similar suit

[@wilsonfisk6626]

How'd Labour go from Foot/Healey to Starmer/Rayner?

[@andrewrobinson8305]

Yeah, Foot & Healey - what a winning combination! Starmer/Rayner - let’s wait and see, give them a chance.

[@wilsonfisk6626]

@@andrewrobinson8305 Starmer and Rayner are Tory Lite. Foot and Healey were true Labour.

[@MarkSmith-tp6zc]

My up The TP TASTS like tot

[@frederickmiles327]

Harold Wilson said in 1964 I am a Bolshevik in a Tsarist Government.Wilson government was dedicated to abolishing profit, private ownership and inheritence. Without both property and privacy all of value is of course lost. Even in the USSR some life depended in reality on individuals, lovers and friends and family maintaing some property and privacy. Those concepts seem to have never been understood by the Labour party.

[@briandelaney9710]

That’s ridiculous

[@briandelaney9710]

This was a mixed economy

[@JamesRichards-mj9kw]

Wilson was a Soviet agent, like Foot.

[@johnq4951]

Footsy with Foot

[@kevinlongman007]

Foot was a good politician but an awful leader. Labour should have elected Denis Healy as leader in 1980 after Callaghan stepped down.

[@briandelaney9710]

Kev L Healer was completely complacent and ran a lackluster campaign for leader.

[@th8257]

@@briandelaney9710 largely because Healey had a reputation for being fiery, and misjudged the leadership campaign by trying not to upset anyone. There's also quite a lot of evidence that some MPs, who were planning to join the SDP, deliberately voted for Foot instead of Healey in order to saddle Labour with an unelectable leader. None of that alters the fact though that Healey would have been a significantly better leader than Foot.

[@baronmeduse]

Where have we heard this before? All the people deemed 'good leaders' turn out to be vacuous neoliberals. It's necessary for the wider public to understand that 'leadership' is not accruing a set of clever soundbites and delivering sophistry at conferences. Denis Healey was a fecking idiot who admitted to Benn years later that Benn was right over the IMF threats. Him and Callaghan, as monetarists, ushered in monetarism, laying the ground for Thatcher when they trashed progressive economic policy.

[@kevinlongman007]

@@baronmeduse If the IMF had not bailed us out when they did we would have been bankrupt and the recession of the early 1980's would have been even worse than it was. Healey and Callaghan did the right thing in asking the IMF for help and it was something they never really wanted to do anyway.

[@baronmeduse]

@@kevinlongman007 Not even close to reality. The IMF is not the issuer of the pound, so they can't decide UK monetary bankruptcy. The UK issues its own currency, it doesn't go 'bankrupt'. Callaghan was under the sway of monetarist twaddle & people still operating as though the world was on the gold standard (ended in 1971). If you borrow and use a foreign currency you definitely could end up not being able to meet payments. UK has never been in that position. National real wealth is in resources, not money. The IMF has no power over either.

[@JamesRichards-mj9kw]

Foot was a Soviet agent, like Wilson.

[@Mpr91]

“This broadcast is sponsored by the KGB.”

[@Ray-xh6gb]

I think foot was a geuin person.in he's beliefs but he was unelectable Healey had more a character in him

[@MegaRuggerio]

I believe he was most probably murdered!

[@richardlaversuch9460]

Thatcher was remarkably generous to Michael Foot. He was wrong about nuclear defence, absolutely wrong; that is a truly terrible thing to be consistently wrong about through one's entire career. This sprang from his fundamental misunderstanding of Marxism and what it represented.

[@baronmeduse]

He wasn't wrong because the "nuclear deterrent" has come to nothing. Foot was remarkably generous to Thatcher because frankly outside of Chemistry she was an idiot.

[@royhypnol3735]

@@baronmeduse Are you a Nonce?

[@hazelwray4184]

How did his stance on nuclear disarmament spring from a misunderstanding of Marxism?

[@blaksu]

When you say he misunderstood Marxism do you speak as a Marxist, or as someone who thinks badly of Foot because of his possible Marxist leanings?

[@knotsandcrosses1]

Ah, Michael Foot. You can now rest in peace knowing that you no longer will go down in history as Labour's worst leader.

[@GA-wq8xq]

@@henryblainesilver True though, Corbyn has been worse.

[@GA-wq8xq]

@@henryblainesilver principle if running on his first manifesto of 1983 is anything to go by. Others would say not adapting to the modern world. Principle if "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" continues to be his world view. Foot was a patriot and a scholar. Two things that don't apply to Corbyn.

[@baronmeduse]

Yes, now Keir is in the hot-seat.

[@Warriorcats64]

Referring to Starmer then? Or perhaps 3 time loser Kinnock? Smith?

[@stephenseagull5740]

Have you heard of Ramsay MacDonald?