Letter from Paul Foot

in reply to an invitation to
attend the symposium on RF Mackenzie in Dundee in 1998.




Private Eye
6 Carlisle Street
London W1V 5RG

Dear Fiona,
Thanks very much for the invitation to the symposium on R.F. Mackenzie. I'm afraid I can't make it on the 14th, I'd never get away with it in the family, for one thing. But I would like to say how much I admired RFM and how lucky I was to enjoy his company on so many occasions.

I first met him when I was a young reporter for the Daily Record, my first job. I believe I first rung him when writing an angry feature against corporal punishment. When the piece appeared he invited me to Fife, where he was head of Braehead comprehensive school. I was absolutely amazed not just by his breadth of vision and limitless idealism but by the fact that he was putting his ideas into practice, as for as he could, within the existing state education system. He was of course a tremendous supporter of comprehensive education, but he was suspicious of the bureaucrats who stunted it. His socialism sprung from a passionate faith that everyone mattered, especially the poorest and most disadvantaged, and that everyone was capable of understanding and enjoying what makes human life worth while.

I became an almost messianic supporter, and wrote a series about him in the Daily Record (I think he was as surprised that I could get such stuff in the Record as I was that he could carry out his ideas in an impoverished state school!!).

I left Scotland in 1964, but kept in contact with him. Whenever I went to Dundee, Edinburgh or, later, Aberdeen, he would come and listen to my ranting, and usually reprove me afterwards for not being radical enough. I stayed with him more than once at his Deeside house which I remember for its overpowering sense of peace.

Things didn't turn out the way he hoped in the 1960's. Reaction set in during the 1970's and still predominates. I don't know the details, but I expect this is why his career did not proceed as it should have done. He was far too strong-willed not to make important enemies.

I remember him with intense affection and admiration, and I hope everyone at your symposium will strive to keep his ideas and his example alive.

Yours Fairthully:


Paul Foot



Tribute to Paul Foot
(comments etc., taken from the Guardian online... press Guardian online to read more)

Campaigning journalist Paul Foot has died aged 66.

The former Private Eye, Daily Mirror and Guardian journalist was known for his left-wing politics and campaigns against miscarriages of justice.

"He was a one-off, and we'll miss him terribly," said Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.

Mr Foot, the nephew of former Labour leader Michael Foot, is understood to have died of a heart attack, said Private Eye editor Ian Hislop.

Mr Foot was married with three sons and a daughter.


Mr Hislop said: "He was a tremendous journalist and he will be a huge loss."

Paying tribute to the award-winning journalist, Mr Rusbridger described his work as "fearless and frequently funny".

He said: "Paul came to the Guardian as an exile from Robert Maxwell. His column was - of course - politically committed.

"He pioneered the art of the investigative column, ferreting facts out of the unlikeliest places and knitting them into a commentary."

Mr Foot had also written several books, including Who Killed Hanratty, and Red Shelley and had published a collection of his columns, Articles of Resistance.

WMD 'piffle'

His other publications include Murder at the Farm: who killed Carl Bridgewater?, Why You Should Be a Socialist, and The Politics of Harold Wilson.

Mr Foot's political life saw him stand as a Socialist Alliance candidate in the 2002 election for Mayor of Hackney in London.

He came third after Labour and the Conservatives.

In the same year, Mr Foot rallied protesters against the war in Iraq and dismissed talk of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction as "piffle".

Mr Foot officially started working for the satirical magazine Private Eye in 1967, but he worked on it almost from its inception in 1961.

He had previously edited the Socialist Worker from 1974 to 1975 and worked for the Daily Mirror between 1979 and 1993.

He was Journalist of the Year in the What The Papers Say Awards in 1972 and 1989, Campaigning Journalist of the Year in the 1980 British Press Awards and won the George Orwell Prize for Journalism in 1994.

Full credit to the Guardian Online for use of the text above.
Please check out other material on Paul Foot through the Guardian Online.

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