Paul Foot

Paul Foot, fine rad­i­cal, fine cam­paigner, fine jour­nal­ist at the Mirror, Pri­vate Eye and The Guardian, and, in his own words, top Bollinger Bol­she­vik, died on Sunday, aged 66

I don’t much like it when people turn the death of a public figure into their own per­sonal trauma, but since Foot has been a part of my polit­i­cal life for as long as I’ve had a polit­i­cal life, I don’t mind saying I had a lump in my throat when I heard the news.

They don’t seem make them like that any more, sadly.

Here’s an excerpt from an inter­view with Foot, by Eddie Mair, first broad­cast in April, 2000 on BBC Radio 4’s Broad­cast­ing House, in which he speaks with typ­i­cal good humour on the sub­ject of his own mor­tal­ity: Foot.mp3.

And here are some obit­u­ar­ies and trib­utes. The Telegraph’s is among the best; a sign that fellow trav­ellers and sworn ene­mies alike held him in high regard.

• Paul Foot, rad­i­cal colum­nist and cam­paigner, dies at 66 (The Guardian)
• Paul Foot: The finest cam­paign­ing jour­nal­ist of his gen­er­a­tion (The Guardian)
• Paul Foot (The Tele­graph)
• Paul Foot: Death of a Mirror Cam­paigner (The Mirror)
• Paul Foot, cam­paign­ing jour­nal­ist and social­ist to the end, dies aged 66 (The Inde­pen­dent)

Posted at 3pm on 20/07/04 by Jack Mottram to the politics category.
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Tags: journalism, obituary