Michael Foot (Ford Mackintosh Ford) Biography

British politician, essayist, and biographer, born in Plymouth, educated at Wadham College, Oxford. He became editor of the Evening Standard before beginning his long and distinguished career as a Labour Member of Parliament in 1945. His historical and biographical studies include The Pen and the Sword (1957), on Jonathan Swift as a political pamphleteer; Aneurin Bevan (2 volumes, 1962, 1973); and The Politics of Paradise (1988), an investigation of Byron's libertarian philosophy. He is highly regarded for the unusual incisiveness and clarity of his essays, which are chiefly collected in Debts of Honour (1980), tributes to writers, politicians, and other figures who assisted or influenced him in various ways, and Loyalists and Loners (1986), biographical and critical appraisals of a wide range of statesmen, journalists, and literary figures. His biography of H. G. Wells was published in 1995. Michael Foot: A Portrait by Simon Hoggart and David Leigh appeared in 1981. See also Michael Foot (1994) by Mervyn Jones.