PAUL FOOTFew political journalists were as influential and respected as Paul Foot who died on 18 July, 2004, aged 66.A lifelong socialist, Foot’s integrity and passion earned him the utmost respect on both sides of the political divide during a career in which he wrote for Private Eye, the Daily Mirror and the Guardian.A public schoolboy with impeccable liberal credentials, Foot was also a passionate orator who championed injustice and fought on behalf of the falsely imprisoned at home and abroad.He worked with boundless enthusiasm for the Socialist Workers Party and stood for public office, always unsuccessfully, on many occasions.Paul Mackintosh Foot was born on 8 November, 1937, in Palestine into a quasi political dynasty. His father was Hugh Foot who later became Lord Caradon, governor of Cyprus and his uncle was Labour party leader, Michael Foot.He was educated at Shrewsbury School where Willie Rushton, Richard Ingrams and Christopher Booker were contemporaries. He was re-united with Ingrams and Booker at Oxford University where they ran the satirical magazine, Parson’s Pleasure.Foot’s first job as a reporter was on the Daily Record in Glasgow and it was in Scotland that he became thoroughly immersed in socialist politics. He joined a group of Trotskyites who would eventually become the Socialist Worker Party.Although he had been contributing to Private Eye since 1964 he joined the magazine on a full-time basis in February 1967 and remained there until 1972 when he left to become the editor of the Socialist Worker.The move surprised many of Foot’s colleagues because he had just achieved a great triumph in exposing corrupt architect John Poulson in a scandal which also led to the resignation of Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling.Six years later Foot returned to Private Eye but in 1979 was poached by the Daily Mirror for whom he wrote a weekly “investigative” column for 14 years before he left to return to Private Eye now under the editorship of Ian Hislop.Many experienced journalists had walked out of Private Eye after Hislop’s appointment and many issues were produced through the young editor and Foot writing all the copy. Foot also wrote a weekly Guardian column from 1993.In 1999 Foot suffered an aortic aneurysm and spent many weeks in bed recovering. He appeared to have made a full recovery but in 2004 he suffered a fatal heart attack at Stansted Airport whilst waiting to embark on a family holiday to Ireland .Foot was married twice – he had two sons with Monica Beckinsale and one son with Roseanne Harvey – but both marriages ended in divorce. Latterly he lived with Clare Fermont, by whom he had a daughter.He was awarded the What the Papers Say Journalist of the Year Award in 1972 and 1989, and Journalist of the Decade during the 1990s. In 1980 he was Campaigning Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards, and in 1994 he won the George Orwell prize for Journalism.He was passionate about injustice and the release of the wrongly imprisoned Birmingham Six and Guildford Four were brought about by Foot’s tireless campaigning.Roy Greenslade, one of his editors at the Mirror said of him: “No one else takes up these cases and applies the kind of pressure that Paul has done. He's not just a good journalist; he's a unique character.”
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