Former Labour leader Michael Foot dies aged 96

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor Published: 12:46PM GMT 03 March 2010

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He led the celebration by one of the bitterest and majority catastrophic durations from 1980 until he was degraded comprehensively in the 1983 ubiquitous election.

Mr Foot was inaugurated to the Commons in 1945 carrying initial stood as a Labour claimant in 1935.

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He kick off a plea from Denis Healey to win the celebration leadership, but the celebration remained committed to a severe agenda.

The 1983 ubiquitous choosing manifesto, described by Gerald Kaufman as the longest self-murder note in history, enclosed a joining to chief disarmament and a host of alternative policies that were a present to a prevalent Conservative celebration underneath Mrs Thatcher who had additionally usually won the Falklands War.

Mr Foot concluded with the preference to send the charge force to the South Atlantic notwithstanding antithesis from a little of his own MPs.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, told MPs he had been sensitive of Mr Foot"s genocide and said: "I am certain that this headlines will be perceived with good dolour not usually in my own celebration but opposite the nation as a whole."

He added: "He was hold in really good love in all sections of the House and opposite the country."

He was tied together to Jill Craigie, the writer and feminist historian, who died in 1999.

Mr Foot was innate in Plymouth in 1913 and initial became MP for Plymouth Devonport in 1945, prior to apropos MP for Ebbw Vale and Blaenau Gwent.

He was Employment Secretary in the 1974-76 Labour supervision underneath Harold Wilson and went on to turn Leader of the Commons in between 1976 and the 1979 ubiquitous election.

In 1980 he became personality of his party, defeating Denis Healey to win the prize, but led it to catastrophic better at the 1983 election.

Mr Foot was famously derided for wearing what was characterised as a dickey coupler at a Cenotaph observance ceremony, nonetheless he regularly insisted he had sported a intelligent car coat.

Although his coming was mostly mocked, his oratory inside and outward the Commons was famed.

He was succeeded as Labour personality by his expert and associate Welshman Neil Kinnock, who took on the tough left and sowed the seeds of New labour.

Mr Foot remained an eager believer of Plymouth Argyle.

He died prior to long prior to 7am on Wednesday sunrise at his home in Hampstead, north London, sources said. He had been ill for a little time with vanishing health and had been reception 24-hour care.