Rt. Hon. Michael Foot

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty eight, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a politician, journalist and writer. He was born seventy-five years ago into a family with impeccable Liberal credentials. He himself, however, espoused Socialism, first as a backbencher and then as leader of his party. He used his oratory to advance its cause, his intellect to pursue its principle. Some say he's the nicest Prime Minister we never had. He is Michael Foote.

Presenter0:58

Mr. Foote, are you um a willing castaway? Does the prospect of peace and solitude delight you?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot1:03

Well, I don't know about the solitude so much, but uh the peace might be acceptable. But I I'm I've certainly of course I'm an old addict of listening to this programme, so that trains one for what's going to happen on the desert islands. So I'm I'm prepared for it.

Presenter1:17

When are you at your happiest?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot1:19

Well, I think when walking across the heath in the morning with my dog Dizzy, that's when the day looks better, but there are lots of other happy times as well. But you're often.

Presenter1:27

But you're often often pursued by the press on those occasions.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot1:29

Well, yes, they've given it up a bit recently, but they were you know, I'm I'm I'm not complaining about life. I think it's a very uh good arrangement on the whole.

Presenter1:38

I can't imagine, mister Foote, that you would be a dab hand at um shelter construction or rabbit snaring there.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot1:44

No, I don't think I'd be any use whatsoever on the island. I'd need to uh have somebody to assist me if I can.

Presenter1:50

Let's hear your first record.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot1:52

Well, I was really brought up in a musical home. My father was musical and had taught himself music as he taught himself pretty well in anything else. He taught himself to.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot2:01

read Greek, he taught himself to read French, he taught himself everything, but he also taught him how to play the piano, and so I should have learned it from him. But the person who really started to teach me about music so to love it and know it properly was Jill. My wife, when we first met, I used to live in a top flat in Park Street, sixty two Park Street. It sounds in the midst of May Fair, a very swish address, but I was paying thirty shillings a week in controlled rent there. And when she saw the general intellectual and other squalor in which I was living, the first thing she pushed into the flat was a great big radiogram, and from that moment onwards Mozart poured out throughout our little flat in Park Street and has continued to pour out ever since. So she's the person who really taught me about music.

Presenter3:50

Mozart's piano concerto number twenty three in A major, played by Solomon, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Herbert Mengis. Well, mister Foote, you were born and bred in a large house in Cornwall, not in Wales, as so many people imagine.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot4:03

That's right, yes. My father was a Liberal in the West Country. Indeed, he was the most prominent leading Liberal in the whole of the West Country, and so he tried to bring us up in that faith. But when I went off to Liverpool at the age of twenty one or so and saw there what was happening, I became a member of the Labour Party and a Socialist. I'd been moving in that way when I was at Oxford, but I joined the Labour Party up in Liverpool in 1933 and 34. And my father didn't mind all that much, I don't think. As long as I didn't move to the right, he didn't mind.

Speaker 44:39

Mm-hmm.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot4:40

And then he put into my hands a book of Hazlitt's, and he said As long as you read Hazlitt, he's a he's a good real radical for you. I know the word radical is debased in modern times, but uh my father then gave me Hazlitt just as he gave me most of the other guidance in these matters.

Presenter4:55

But this this house in Cornwall was crammed with books, wasn't it?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot4:59

That's right. My father had been left school himself at the age of thirteen, fourteen, but right from the very beginning, when he came up to London to sit for a civil service exam or something, he started collecting books then, and he went on collecting books right to the day when he died at the age of eighty or eighty one. And I don't think he ever got rid of a book except when he gave them to some of his sons and daughters.

Presenter5:22

There were many sons and daughters as well as books. There were seven.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot5:25

Yeah, seven altogether.

Presenter5:27

You must have been quite a handful, not just because of your numbers. I mean, you and your other three brothers all ended up, for example, as presidents of the Oxford Union. I mean, that was perhaps the least of what we did.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot5:38

Most of them came to the Labour Party too, I'm glad to say. I led the way, but uh the the my elder brothers and a few others came in that direction.

Presenter5:45

So it must have been a a huge bustling effervescent household.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot5:49

That's right. There was something going on all the time, and we were arguing with each other all the time. And my father was always trying to uh encourage us to read. And uh in this huge place which had different rooms, you know, room b some of the some of the rooms were about Wordsworth, some of them devoted to Napoleon, some of the to detective stories, some huge different kinds of Catholic reading my father had, and all these different uh crazies he would have, and some of them different ones of his sons and daughters used to adopt uh different forms of reading from him. But on the whole I think I read more than the others, and therefore uh he was uh showed me some favour on that account.

Presenter6:33

Let's have your second reference.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot6:34

Well, my second rovel is comes from uh the holidays we had. And again with Gill we had some marvellous holidays and especially we went to Venice, which is the very best place on the face of the planet. One of the best people who's written about Venice is Stondahl, and he said if you want to understand the real mood and spirit of Venice and all its excitement, all its passion for freedom and the beginnings of the Risorgimento and the rest, if you want to hear that, you can hear it in Rossini's Italian Girl in Algiers. And so I became, from that time onwards, a Rossini addict.

Speaker 47:12

Atomic Jubilo, Esurita in the world.

Speaker 17:13

Uh

Speaker 17:20

BAAAAAAA

Speaker 47:32

Sonwesti amorque dori.

Speaker 47:41

Son questi quoidira tu susqueño fi vidi apéti ko. My god, been corn determined.

Speaker 48:02

West Vision Behold and West Wisdom Robert Iraq.

Speaker 48:15

Let's go.

Presenter8:17

Lindoro's song from the Italian Girl in Algiers by Rossini, sung by Ernesto Palaccio with the Coro Philharmonico di Praga, conducted by Josef Weselca.

Presenter8:29

Well, mister Ford, you won an exhibition to Wadham College, Oxford not least, I gather, because the examination question was somewhat fortuitous.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot8:38

Yes, it was indeed. I was having my before I went up to take the exam, I went to have a meal with my father and he was in the National Liberal Club where he used to give us meals occasionally. And he was sitting at that time as a member of the Royal Commission or the Conference on India, which was going to shape the governments or the policy in 1930 and 1931. And it so happened that that night he described to me what was going to be embraced in the announcement that was to be made in a few days' time of the actual findings of the Roundtable Conference on India. The whole world was waiting for this, but he told me in detail, and lo and behold, when I got to my examination the next morning, the first question was, what do you think should be the outcome of the Roundtable Conference on India? So I gave the most authoritative scoop that's ever been supplied to the examiners in Wadham. However, you know, you're distracting me from Rossini. One of the problems is, as I said, I became a Rossini addict. And of course, I don't want to leave any false impression about him. We could have the whole of the rest of this programme devoted to Rossini, and some might say, when we hear what happens later, that that might be an advantage. But I do think that the women in Rossini are show that they're the masters, or the mistresses, if you say, of the men. They show that they're in command of the situation. And I think one of the greatest moments in all the Rossini operas is the first appearance of Rossina in the Barber of Seville when she comes on and announces that she's going to twist them all round her little finger. And she describes it perfectly. And I believe that all my favourites, like Stondahl and Heine and Hazlitt, they all and Baron too, they all fell in love with Rossini's Rossina, and I think everybody else should do so as well.

Speaker 410:43

That's it all.

Speaker 410:45

I'm the little kiddo.

Speaker 411:00

No turret.

Presenter11:44

Maria Callas singing Una voce poca fa from Rossini's Barber of Seville, with the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Alceo Gallietta.

Presenter11:54

I read that you made your first political speech at the age of thirteen in your own back garden, said I.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot12:00

Well, I don't know about that. The ones, the earliest ones I can remember, really, that were I'd made several at Oxford, of course, and at the Oxford Union, and but the real testing ones, the place where you could really learn the game, was in Liverpool when I joined the Labour Party there. And we used to have open air meetings then on the real soap boxes at real street corners, and you had to be pretty good to stand up there. A far better training, I may say, even than the Oxford Union. I'm not saying anything against Oxford, it's a very splendid place, but Liverpool was even better.

Presenter12:33

Liverpool, of course, was the the birthplace of your friendship with um with Jennie Lee and the man who was to be her husband, Anarin Bevan.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot12:42

I met him about 1934, and right from that time we were friends until the day of his death. Soon after then I came to know Jenny Lee too, before they'd actually got married and so I know that knew the two of them right from that moment onwards. I can't imagine what life would have been without knowing both of them. Naren Bevan got a special delight out of life generally and some of the music we'll hear a bit later refers to it. He also was a Mozart addict and a Rossini addict, but to be fair, I think one of the people who sort of guided me about Mozart even more than Naren Bevan and some of the others was reading Bridget Brophy and her books. And in one of Bridget's books on Mozart she describes, and this is for The Marriage of Figaro, people don't always realize the political implications of the marriage of Figaro, but if they read Bridget Brophy she shows that in the in one of the great choruses or passages in The Marriage of Figaro it is really the the what she calls the three oppressed classes who are able to put their case against the aristocracy, the three oppressed classes being servants, women and the young, and together they managed to present the case in the Figaro extract that we listen to.

Speaker 414:27

Beauty tariros les voros si, les vorero si, les voros.

Speaker 414:38

Cevo veriere, le miaspola, la vriola, l'inceio.

Speaker 414:48

Save all of me.

Speaker 414:54

Arthur Riola, Leinseigner Si, Lenseiro Si, Lenseñero, Suffro.

Presenter15:06

Sevuol Ballere, Signor Contino, from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, sung by Thomas Allen, with the Vena Philharmonica, conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter15:17

Well, we were talking about Aniron Bevan. Um he, like Gateskill, was to oppose unilateralism, wasn't he?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot15:26

Yes, indeed, and we had some arguments about it, but that came a good deal later. But we had we we had some arguments and we had some fierce arguments, I may say, on the subject. Uh looking back on it, I think he was probably a good deal more right than I was at that time. Still, there was a strong case on both sides, and uh that's what uh we were each seeking to uh to put

Presenter15:50

But it's an issue which goes on, dividing not to say damaging the Labour Party, isn't it?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot15:55

Well, it is indeed, and but I I still wear in my badge, I've got it here. I'm still a supporter of the campaign for nuclear disarmament, and I believe that it's going to come back into the forefront of our international politics again because it'll go on until the nuclear weapons are abolished.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot16:15

Yeah.

Presenter16:15

Can we just uh talk for a moment about um another great influence in your life other than an Iron Bevan, and that was Lord Beaverbrook. An unusual alliance, that, I think, for the radical young Michael Foote.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot16:26

As a matter of fact, um the my introduction to Beaverbrook was made by an Iron Bevan, who had been friendly with him.

Presenter16:26

As a matter of fact,

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot16:33

Two. And when I had a row on Tribune and was not prepared to continue in the form in which they were then, Brahe and Aaron Bevan went round to Beaverbrook and said, Well, here, there's a young journalist who we've had on our paper, Tribune. Maybe you'd like to y get his services. Now, I became very friendly with Beaverbrook because I learnt a lot from him. Beaverbrook uh had uh attractions for any young people. People who used to say, Well, if you go and sup with him, you're going to be destroyed, you're going to be engulfed. But uh it wasn't like that, and uh you know, if you stood up to him, Beaverbrook was quite prepared to have

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot17:10

uh people arguing at his table. When I first went there, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty, the y it was an astonishing array of people that he used to have in his house in London or down in the country. Uh it was Churchill, Van Sittet, Brendan Bracken, who were putting the case uh about appeasement in terms which was absolutely opposed to what was being said in Beaverbrook's papers. And then you had people like Anarim Bevanon.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot17:35

Frank Owen, who was the editor of the Evening Standard for whom I were working, we were on the Left Liberal Party or the Labour Party, and or we were all entitled to in joining the discussion as well. And so the freest and most uninhibited discussion I'd ever heard in my life, and I think it's a good deal freer than happens at uh the uh tables of most newspaper proprietors today, was at Beaverbrook round Beaverbrook's place, and nobody had to pull any punches. The more you stated your own view clearly, the more he liked it, and I got on very good terms with him. I was almost uh adopted. I had a very good father of my own. I didn't need to have another father, but in a sense he was a second kind of uh father figure.

Presenter18:20

Let's have your fifth record.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot18:21

Well, the next record is one that reminds me of an Iron Bevan almost more than any other record, because we used to play this extract from Handel's Love in Bath, and he used to dance up and down out of sheer joie de vive, and it was a wonderful sight to see.

Presenter19:40

A hunting dance from Handel's Love in Bath played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Presenter19:47

Can we talk for a moment about your appearance, mister Foote, a matter which has got you into trouble on occasions, not least at the cenotaph, when the press decided you turned up in your donkey jacket?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot19:57

Yes, well the donkey jack jacket was never a donkey jacket and the shop where I bought the jacket they were most aggrieved about this charge. It was a perfectly respectable jacket. It was a dark green one. I had a black suit on and black shoes and it wasn't a donkey jacket at all. Indeed, as I've mentioned in the House of Commons before, once when I got back after the ceremony, I certainly intended no disrespect, of course, to anybody there. When I got back into the foreign office where they give you a drink after the affair, it was a cold day, a bitterly cold day, and when I got in, I was greeted by the Queen Mother, who was always very kind and people, and she said to me, What a nice coat you've got on, and how good a coat that is for such a day as this. And I said, Well, thank you very much. So I never occurred to me there was going to be any trouble about the coat. And then six o'clock that night, much to my amazement, I was driving back from some place in the country where I'd been after the Senitoff affair, and to my amazement I heard that some people were complaining about this poor coat.

Presenter21:03

It was a strange business, wasn't it? And and there were those who said that it it

Presenter21:08

tarnished your image a bit. Does all do you find all of that offensive?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot21:12

What is appalling is of course the way in which now most of the presentation of politicians at election times is packaged altogether. This has all come from the United States. It was taken over by Mrs. Thatcher in the 1983 election and even more in the 1987 election. And they are protected against any kind of intrusion of the public into these affairs. Well, I think this is quite one.

Presenter21:38

Well, but the the Labour Party came to it too, did it not? I mean Mr. Gillock in the last election.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot21:40

Well, Mr. Kinner, and I think it hit that his was a perfectly reputable programme, but I think it's not packaged in that way. And in any case, he had many more meetings with the general public than the others allowed. I do think that when politicians make speeches in public and they're just reading it, in fact, off a script in front, which is made to look as if they're just as if they're speaking absolutely without any preparation, I think that's a deception, and so I think that it shouldn't be allowed. But Reagan does it here. Reagan does it perfectly, and he still does it. All his speeches are done by this method. I heard him do it when he came to speak in the House of Commons when he made a speech there. That was the first time I'd seen it in operation. Of course, his delivery is also very good. He says his word perfect. It looks as if he's making a speech right out of his brain and the words are coming out. But we know that it's a fake. So I think it's a great pity that's happened, particularly when I look back and remember what a real speech was like from, say, Lloyd George or Naron Bevan or the people who really could do it.

Presenter22:49

Your next record.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot22:49

Uh the next record, well, it's uh another one that uh reminds me of an iron bevan, who used to play at his house uh this this section from uh from the pastoral, Beethoven's pastoral, and I and I think it reminds me also of him as well.

Presenter24:07

The beginning of the second movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, No. six, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter24:17

mister Foote, you first held public office in nineteen seventy four. That was nearly thirty years after you first entered the House. You were sixty. Why did you leave it so long?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot24:27

Nobody'd ask me before, but being a backbench member of the House of Commons is a very good job in my opinion, and I would have been quite happy to have stayed always on the backbenches, and I think being a backbench member of Parliament is one of the ways in which parliamentary democracy is kept going. So I think it's an excellent job.

Presenter24:48

But really th I think the point I seek to make is that one never sensed in you um then or or now a a real desire for power. It well you did it as a as a duty. You don't relish power, do you?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot24:59

Well, I don't know about a duty. I think that's putting it too high. I did it I I relished it and I enjoyed it very much and uh certainly it was a novel experience and to have all these uh high-powered civil servants, I must say I learnt a very great uh respect for many of them. It's particularly true was one special department at the Department of Employment where many of them were very top class civil servants, and I must say I learnt a different picture or insight or view, shall we say, of the way this country is run by actually seeing how it operated in a government.

Presenter25:32

Will you became leader in in nineteen eighty?

Presenter25:35

Were you set an impossible task? As the the great saviour of the party, the one person who could unite the left and the right, something which which no one had done or perhaps has succeeded in doing yet.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot25:46

Well, I think it was a difficult one. I certainly set out to do it, and that was what why I was elected, I think, because people on different sections of the party thought I had a better chance of doing it than anybody else, and I think perhaps I did have a better chance than most of the others. If they oth some of the others had been elected, I think there might have been a deeper split in the Labour Party then, which would have caused much later problems.

Presenter26:12

Of course, one remembers the election of'83, which was another landslide to the Tories, the second term for Mrs. Thatcher. That must have been a terrible day for you.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot26:22

Well, it was a most painful experience, much the most painful day in my life was that night when we got those results. I was expecting to be defeated, of course. I mean, that was all clear that we were going to be defeated, but I didn't r think the defeat was going to be as bad as it was. And several of my closest friends, who were very fine members of Parliament and members of the Labour Party, went down in that defeat and had a and many, many other people suffered on account of that defeat, in my opinion. The country, after 1979 and after 1983, went through an appalling experience. We're still going through some of it. Mass unemployment is a major disease and mustn't be treated as something that can be tolerated. And the mass unemployment from 1979 to 1983, still continuing in many parts of our country, is a disease of a very deep nature. And that was what was re-established or reconfirmed, and the country voted for in 1983. I'm very sorry that they did it. I hope the country will come to its senses.

Presenter27:26

How great a personal disappointment for you was it not to become Prime Minister?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot27:30

Well, I didn't really expect that it was going to happen. I had a after an election in I was first elected for a short period up to the time of the Falklands' War almost. You know, it looked as if we had a good chance in the for subsequent election, and I would have very much liked it to happen. I think it would have been much better for the country, I say immodestly, but there you are. But, you know, I had to though these things have to be borne. Moreover, I don't know whether we come to the next record on this one. I think it's quite a good chance to do it. One of the great enjoyments and comforts that I've had has been a Welsh constituency. I don't say inherited, but I was adopted in an Iron Bevan's old constituency of Ebbervale. And of course, there are many, many delights there. The Welsh understand music as well as any other nation in the world. They can sing as well as the Italians or the Russians, who I suppose are the people who can do it very best. And when they do the choruses, they're the very best of the lot. In my constituency, we have several great choirs, several great bands. Some of them occasionally join together. Some of them sing special Welsh songs. And here's one coming up. Let's hear one that they sing.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot28:48

in their own special way.

Presenter29:46

The Monmouthshire Massed Male Voice Choir conducted by Ray Jenkins singing Mivanwi.

Presenter29:52

mister Foote, you've always found great consolation for any political ups and downs you've suffered, um, I know, in your writing. And now you sit in judgment of others' writing because you're chairman of of the Booker judges. Is that a difficult task?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot30:05

It's a very difficult task, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything. When I took it on, or when I was asked to do it, some people said you're an absolute fool to do that. I've done lots of foolish things in my life, but they said that's one of them, because you'll get attacked from every quarter about it, and that may still be the case, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything, because I've read many more novels than I would otherwise have read. I don't say I wouldn't have read some of these anyhow. I'm not a tremendous novel reader. Usually, when I've had defeats, as you've said, I've gone off and tried to write something myself, and I think it's a very good cure. Some of the people who are my heroes, Jonathan Swift and Byron, if it hadn't been for them, at moments of defeat, would have been very much worse. But it's been a slightly different experience, the booker prize. I've certainly learnt a a lot from reading the books, but even more from hearing the four other highly qualified judges discussing the whole range of r writing in this country at the present time. I think the standard's very high and therefore the winner, I believe, will deserve very great credit indeed.

Presenter31:15

May I draw our discussion to a close by asking you the the classic question, Mr Foote, if I may, which is that as you look back over your seventy five years, is it possible to say which of your achievements you are most proud of?

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot31:29

Well, I think the the my books on Anarem Bevan, the two books, two volumes on Anarem Bevan, I think they're the best thing I ever wrote, and I hope that that's what people are going to go on reading. I don't mean to say there's nothing to be changed in those books, but I do believe

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot31:44

They do present the figure of the man who was the greatest democratic socialist in this country of this century. I think he should have been Prime Minister of this country, and I believe the kind of political view that he presents is what the country needs.

Presenter31:59

Let me ask you for your eights and your last record.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot32:01

Well, this one is another adopted Welsh national anthem. The Welsh have got some very good national anthems of their own, and they incorporate everything that they sing in their own way.

Presenter33:14

The chorus of the Hebrew slaves from Verdi's Nabucco with the orchestra and chorus of the Welsh National Opera conducted by Richard Armstrong. So, Mr Foote, the moments of decision. First of all, you have to say which of those eight records you would really like to hang on to more than any of the others.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot33:31

Well, it's a very difficult choice, especially in view of the last wonderful Welsh chorus, but I think I particularly because Byron has been a bit squeezed out of this programme, I'm sorry to say, I think I must choose the song Racina's song in the Barber of Seville, because that's one of the tunes that Byron used to whistle in his bath.

Presenter33:52

The Maria Callus, right? And your book.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot33:54

Well, the that again is very difficult. There's first of all a candidate Gullo Swift's Gulliver's Travels, obviously a very strong candidate on the island, and then there's Montaigne's essays. Byron took them to Greece with him, and I think that would be a very good choice. But I come down finally in favour of Byron's Don Dewan, the very best poem in the language on these matters, and I think all new discoveries could be made upon the island itself, and as I want to get everybody else in the country to read

Presenter33:55

Great

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot34:24

Don Jewan, right from beginning to end, I think that's the best way to finish it.

Presenter34:29

And your luxury.

Rt. Hon. Michael Foot34:30

My luxury is I've got here a little alarm clock which gets me up if necessary at six o'clock. It's an ordinary alarm clock, but it's covered with uh tin plate made in Ebervale. It's the best tin plate in the world. This beautifully slender tin plate. You can see for yourself what a wonderful product it is. It's uh when it was uh we we about a had a seventy or eighty million investment there, which we said we were going to build the best tin plate in the world, and this is what we've done. So I think I'll take that with me as well.

Presenter35:01

A small piece of whales. Michael Foote, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 135:13

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.