Talk:Michael Foot

That's a funny headline. Did it really run in a newspaper?

The article cites this Simon Hoggart column in the Guardian for its claim that "Foot Heads Arms Body" was an actual newspaper headline (ascribing it to "Martyn Cornell, who was a subeditor on the Times around 1986") So it sounds like it did, if Hoggart isn't kidding and Cornell wasn't putting him on.

It's funny either way, but it would be great to confirm (or refute) that this was the Times, and get a date and page number. Does the Times have a searchable index online? TypoBoy (talk) 17:33, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Can't find it in the 1785-1985 index, nor in UK Newsbank - but a letter on 30 Jan 2008, page 16 (in Newsbank), supports the story:

Sir, The letters about odd headlines (Jan 25 and 28) reminded me of an all time favourite. In the early 1980s Michael Foot became leader of the Labour Party. He was also a co-founder of CND and pushed for nuclear disarmament. Mr Foot travelled to Brussels to chair a lobby group in the European Parliament to construct a plan to get rid of the bomb as part of the European election policy. From this came the headline " Foot heads arms body ". AL JAMES Bollington, Cheshire

PamD 19:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

It may have run after the period covered by the 1785-1985 index. Or -- here's the thing -- it may not have run at all. That letter in Newsbank doesn't support the story so much as recount it. I just searched LexisNexis with the headline, and found the New York Times' 11/11/1980 article "BRITISH LABORITES CHOOSE A LEFTIST AS PARTY LEADER", but not the one we're discussing.

At this point, I'd say it's probable, though not certain, that this was not a real headline. TypoBoy (talk) 12:54, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

This discussion started some months ago. In that time, nobody has found a cite for the headline, despite searching online newspaper databases. Of course, this is not proof that the headline never ran. But then, what is? A canonical list of all newspaper headlines from the 1980s? We don't have one of those. But we do have online newspaper databases. Which don't seem to include the headline.

So, though we can't say the story is false, it is certainly doubtful, though told as true. In other words, it's apocryphal. If nobody objects, I intend to edit the article to say so. TypoBoy (talk) 15:25, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Here's the text I propose:

Foot's involvement in the nuclear disarmament movement gave rise to the beloved, if apocryphal, story that The Times ran the headline "Foot Heads Arms Body" over an article about his leadership of a nuclear-disarmament committee. Some decades later, Martyn Cornell recalled the story as true, saying he had written the headline himself as a Times subeditor around 1986.^[1]

This version keeps the funny headline without making any statements unsupported by citation (such as claiming the headline ran "in 1986", or that it's known to have run at all). And, while acknowledging the questionable truth of the story, it features the most solid evidence it has, which is Simon Hoggart's statement about what Cornell recalled to him. TypoBoy (talk) 13:53, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The local university subscribes to LexisNexis Academic. I was able to use this to search The Times for the phrase "Foot heads arms body". It found only the 2008 letter to the editor quoted above. Though, as PamD observes, the letter supports the story, the story of the letter (that is, that it can be found by searching for the phrase) strongly supports the idea that the phrase never ran as a headline. (Otherwise, that LexisNexis search would have two hits.)

At this point, it's pretty clear that this is a great story, but not a true one. It may be too generous to call it "apocryphal" rather than merely false. I'm going to put the verbiage above into the article. TypoBoy (talk) 01:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Oops -- already done. Thanks, PamD! TypoBoy (talk) 01:48, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

An anonymous editor with the IP address 77.96.79.20 changed the last sentence of the "Foot Heads Arms Body" paragraph to read:

The headline does not, however, appear in The Times Digital Archive for the years 1785-2007, probably because it ran only in the first edition, and the digitised archive is taken from the final edition.

The point that the digital archive contains only each day's final edition is relevant here, if it's true. It's too much, though, to say that the famous headline's absence from the digital archive is "probably" because it ran only in the first edition. Another explanation, of course, is that it didn't run at all, and there's no reason to call the first explanation the probable one. I have edited the sentence to retain the idea that the digital archive contains only the final edition, but to point out the lack of a citation for that idea. And I removed the language about probability, because the explanation that appears to carry the highest probability is that this headline didn't actually run. TypoBoy (talk) 16:35, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

This recent edit by User:ThunderPeel2001 greatly changes the sense of the paragraph, from "here's an interesting story, though of questionable veracity" to "here's a fact, though we haven't looked it up yet". Wikipedia has gone back to its bad old habit of asserting the apparent untruth that the Times ran the headline "Foot Heads Arms Body".

It's a funny headline and a good story, so it's great to get it into the article. But let's not mislead. TypoBoy (talk) 19:43, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Sayung that it has questionable veracity is absolutely correct. Unfortunately it previously said it was apocryphal, which is actually making an unsupported statement. Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker (talk) 00:30, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

One definition of "apocryphal" is "of doubtful veracity". I'll let you decide whether that means something different from "of questionable veracity". Right now, the article says neither; it just tells the story straight, and calls it "beloved". That's badly misleading.

You did add a "citation needed" tag; I took that to mean that there was no citation for the claim that the headline ever existed. A subsequent editor replaced that with a link to the Times Digital Archive. Apparently, that editor understood that what was needed was a citation to support the claim that the story isn't in the Times Digital Archive. TypoBoy (talk) 02:26, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I think now that I was wrong to object, last May, to the way we tell the "Foot Heads Arms Body" story. Reading it now, I see that it doesn't leave the reader with the impression that the headline actually ran. TypoBoy (talk) 15:50, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I see now that this entire section was deleted on 3 February. The discussion about it, in this talk-page section, has been going on for more than a decade. There are a lot of people who know nothing about Michael Foot aside from the apocryphal headline. And multiple sites claim that the headline did run, and cite a former version of this article that says so.

Let's have a discussion about it here. Pending the outcome, I'll put it back. @Tim O'Doherty:, walk us through your thinking on this. TypoBoy (talk) 02:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I deleted it because it was badly sourced and undue to have a section on. If discussion's been running for 11 years, and cared about so much, there isn't really an excuse for it to be so terribly referenced; you've had a decade to clean it up a bit. The section's also been orange-tagged, so is a detriment to the article. Being honest, don't really understand the attachment to such a rubbishy passage. Happy to hear your side. Cheers, Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Your application of the primary-source tag seems like a misuse. A reader wrote a letter to the editor, and The Guardian printed that letter; how is that any less legitimate a citation than if The Guardian were to print an article saying that it had run the letter?

Your reference to WP:UNDUE likewise seems not relevant. That policy relates to narrowly-held or fringe views on a topic, but there's no fringe view being discussed here.

Among the topics of enduring interest related to Michael Foot is the fact that a punning headline has been said to have been made about him. The claim is continually made that that headline ran (for instance, in this Reddit thread). It's perfectly appropriate to devote one paragraph of this 75,000-character article to the topic. TypoBoy (talk) 19:32, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Of course, "Reddit" isn't a reliable source or an establisher of notability. A secondary source would be needed to establish the notability of the topic: primary sources can be used well, but can't be used for that. WP:MINORASPECT might fit my point better re WP:DUE, but they're essentially the same thing: don't go into detail over small things like this. If you want to keep it, make your case in the article by providing several high-quality secondary sources. Googling "Foot Heads Arms Body" on Google gets ~1,130 hits; "Michael Foot" gets ~229,000. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 19:40, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@TypoBoy I was alerted to this discussion by email, and I see, to my surprise, that I did indeed contribute to the wording of that section in October 2013 (took a lot of scrolling of the page history). I have no recollection of what brought me to the article at that time, as Foot is not on my watchlist. That said, the section seems appropriate and well sourced: the "primary sources" tags seem inappropriate as the sources themselves are the topic at this point. So 1100 ghits reference this phrase: Wikipedia can usefully collate the various elements of the anecdote to inform the curious reader, and this well-sourced section should remain in the article. PamD 06:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

And it's in The Independent's list of top ten headlines. PamD 06:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

On the strength of which I have reinstated the text, with this added reference. PamD 08:23, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I think I've found out how I reached Foot's article: a few months earlier his was one of many on which I reverted an IP who had changed "Leader of the Opposition" to "Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition", I think getting there from John Smith (Labour Party leader) where I spotted it first, so presumably for some reason I added Foot to my watchlist at that time. PamD 08:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:20, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

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An editor keeps trying to change the following sentence in the lede:

His strongly left-wing political positions and criticisms of vacillating leadership made him an unpopular leader.

To:

Intense media disparagement, hostility of the British business establishment to the Labour Party, and criticisms from some of vacillating leadership made him an unpopular leader.

Neither sentence has citations. There are three citations after the next sentence, but when I checked, they only apply to the next sentence.

The lede is meant to be a summary of what is written in the article. There is a sentence (unfortunately uncited) "Foot struggled to make an impact, and was widely criticised for his ineffectiveness". That is not exactly the same as "vacillating", but it might be another way of saying the same thing. Source [26] has a statement that: "The election of Foot as leader represented a dramatic swing to the left". That would justify the statement that he had strongly left-wing positions.

Are the IP editors claims true that there was "intense media disparagement" true - yes, there was intense media disparagement of Mrs Thatcher at the time. But I do not see why that would make Foot an unpopular leader. What about hostility of the British business establishment to the Labour Party in the early 1980s - at the time Foot became leader, Labour had won four out of the last six general elections in Britain - so is it likely that the British business establishment was hostile to Labour? Toddy1 (talk) 22:22, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

"It was suggested in 2011 that he became a member of the secret Auxiliary Units"

I was surprised to read someone claim this in a newspaper comment section today. I've read the linked source twice now, and find nothing of the sort suggested. The only reference I can find is in a Mirror article from 2014 which states the possibility, but it is not sourced. Can anyone enlighten me? Is there a primary source for the claim Foot may have been in an Auxiliary Unit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amateur-History1984 (talk • contribs) 13:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The claim seems to start with QI, I don't think it's known currently what their primary source is, but as it was claimed, I have returned it. I am trying to find more sources.Halbared (talk) 19:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

And I have just deleted it, because the source (Independent) makes no mention of the claim, and because a comedy panel show is not a reliable source. Amateur-History1984 (talk) 11:53, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I have again deleted the claim as it has no RS. Whoever keeps reinserting please consider that it may be comforting to picture a hero of the Old Left receiving commando training so he could sabotage Nazis, there is no RS. It is also not credible he would be part of a clandestine and specialised unit considering the other claim that he volunteered for military service but was refused because of asthma.Amateur-History1984 (talk) 18:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC) The claim as made and the way it is phrased here is worth enough to be included.Halbared (talk) 19:53, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Alright I give up, this is exhausting. Michael Foot was trained as a clandestine saboteur in WW2, based on Stephen Fry making up history on a comedy panel show based on a shallow boast from Foot himself. Thank you for making me a believer. Amateur-History1984 (talk) 17:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if this is confusion by QI over the historian Michael Foot who wrote about SOE and Michael Foot the politician? Mighty Antar (talk) 19:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so. Though I was amused by the coincidence. The auxiliaries filled their ranks with anarchists, communists, extreme political sorts who were the harshest opponents of Hitler. I've emailed the elves at QI to help with the claim.Halbared (talk) 21:01, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

You are inventing history out of thin air. Auxiliary Units were not full of anarchists, communists and extreme political sorts. Poachers, gamekeepers, farmers yes. Lefties who edited fleet street newspapers? No lol. The Auxiliary Units overall commander fought against communists in the Russian Civil War, you think he would have put out a call for trots and anarchists? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Units. The possibility of GHQ recruiting the likes of Michael Foot for a special operations leave-behind force is absolutely laughable. And yes, go ahead email some staff writer at a BBC Comedy Show, I'm sure they are well-read on WW2-era British unconventional warfare units. Amateur-History1984 (talk) 17:49, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Foot was neither a Trotskyist nor a Communist nor an Anarchist. DuncanHill (talk) 18:01, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

We're having a bit of a challenge reaching consensus on how (that is, whether) "philosophy, politics and economics" should be capitalized (or, as I guess Foot would have said, capitalised). Wikipedia has an article about exactly this degree course, and its History section begins "Philosophy, politics and economics was established as a degree course at the University of Oxford in the 1920s". Is there any reason why that Oxford degree course should be styled differently in this article versus its own article? We're talking about the same course at the same university. Surely the two articles should jibe. (Right?) Is this article wrong, or is the "philosophy, politics and economics" article consistently getting wrong its precise topic?

Isn't it the same as, for example, physics? That's a university course. Also a science. Also a common noun, and therefore not capitalized. TypoBoy (talk) 16:38, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I notice that, since I created this talk-page section, nobody has added any arguments one way or the other to it, but a number of people have edited the article, swapping back and forth between "philosophy, politics and economics" and "Philosophy, Politics and Economics". I don't think either of these actions is a credit to us Wikipedians.

I'll say explicitly (in case it wasn't clear above) that I consider "philosophy, politics and economics" preferable. But it's clear that people with the opposite preference are well represented in our community. I suppose that that means that some of us (perhaps even half? [or more?]) will have to learn to live with a different style from what we prefer. If it comes down to a matter of taste, I don't see why my taste should be more important than anybody else's.

I do, however, think that the way that the name of that degree program is styled should be consistent between this article, the Philosophy, politics and economics article itself, and the many articles that link to it, either by the name "philosophy, politics and economics" or as "Philosophy, Politics and Economics". There seem to be 166 of the former and 416 of the latter. (I don't know whether those numbers bespeak a general preference for the capitalized version or more efficient edit-warring on the part of its proponents.)

So, non-capitalizers: stop your edit warring and come explain here why you think we should use small letters. And capitalizers: don't be a sore winner, but instead come explain why you've made the article the way it is now. TypoBoy (talk) 14:57, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I have no preference either way, but a from a cursory investigation it appears to be historical and derives from the American tendency toward abbreviating the name of the course to PPE and subsequent clarifications about what the initials stand for. Given the (again histroical) British tendency toward confining such vulgar abbreviations to the military or civil service, I suspect the answer lies somewhere in that area. Mighty Antar (talk) 17:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

So the British way is to not capitalise the title, but Oxford do, and this is the course at Oxford, so should be represented as Oxford style it?Halbared (talk) 17:55, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I think most of the changes to lower case have been done by socks of a long-term abuse account that repeatedly violated WP:NOTBROKEN. It is not edit warring to revert them. According to Oxford the course is capitalised , and this is the course Foot did, so in my opinion we should go with that. If he had gone to a university that does not capitalise it, I would support not capitalising here. I see nothing positive about forcing a consistency on Wikipedia which does not exist in the real world. DuncanHill (talk) 22:27, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

We have had the trolling problem twice in the last week so the recent lower case edits are invalid and have been reverted accordingly with both IPs being blocked for several days. I agree with Duncan that the course title should be capitalised per its publisher. If Oxford had used lower case, I would support that. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:41, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

The portrait of Foot at the head of the article needs changing. It's inappropriate that he's literally asleep in it and is a negative portrayal of him. A neutral image, where he's awake, needs to be licenced. JjStrawb (talk) 15:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

The other photos in the Michael Foot category on Wikimedia Commons are either so low-quality that his face is barely perceptible, or not during his peak political years. There's a lack of Foot images primarily because portraits of him won't enter public domain for a while. 2A02:C7C:2DCE:1F00:6C63:1132:C72:54E1 (talk) 17:37, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

The 2018 allegations should be mentioned. ~2026-17225-13 (talk) 10:07, 20 March 2026 (UTC)