Mick Hartley

As everyone seems to agree, Michael Foot was a lovely man and a notable writer, but not a political success:

Michael’s Foot greatest legacy to the Labour Party was unintended.

Under his leadership it became so unelectable that its membership, at union, grassroots and parliamentary level, finally came to its senses.

Then there's this, from Valerie Grove, on a trip the elderly Foot made to Jamaica:

On the flight out, he reread The Black Jacobins, by C.L.R. James, one of his heroes. He had never heard of reggae, or gangsta rap. But he was game to learn. His response to any plan, even with a 5am start, was “You bet!”. So Oliver took him to spend an evening with the dreadlocked Buju Banton in his ganja-reeking studio — and Michael tapped his stick and told Buju about the choirs of Ebbw Vale.

Shades of Ali G there. Buju Banton is, of course, notorious for his violently homophobic lyrics. Oh well.

I'm surprised that he'd never heard of reggae, though, after that affair with the sexually highly charged black woman.