FOOT, Paul (Mackintosh) 1937-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born November 8, 1937, in Haifa, Palestine (now Israel); died of a heart attack July 18, 2004, in Stansted, Essex, England. Journalist and author. Foot was a prizewinning British satirist and political commentator with a leftist philosophy and willingness to expose corruption that often made him a controversial figure. Coming from a privileged family, he served with the British Army Jamaica Regiment before attending University College, Oxford, where he earned a B.A. in 1961. A member of the Socialist Worker's party, he worked for the Glasgow Daily Record as a reporter and in 1977 ran, unsuccessfully, for the Birmingham Stechford seat in Parliament under his party's ticket. He reported for the Socialist Worker from 1972 to 1978, and was also the newspaper's editor from 1974 to 1975. An offer to work for the Daily Mirror as an investigative reporter in 1979 led to fourteen years of heated columns, earning him the Campaigning Journalist of the Year honor from the British Press Awards in 1980 and his second Journalist of the Year award from the Granada What the Papers Say Awards in 1989 (his first came in 1972). His time at the Daily Mirror ended when Foot criticized his own newspaper's management and was summarily dismissed. In 1993, Foot moved on to the Private Eye, which was founded by two of his old Oxford friends and for which he had once worked in the early 1970s; he went on to win the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 1994 and the Journalist of the Decade award in 2000. In addition to his columns and articles, Foot wrote numerous books, including Who Killed Hanratty? (1971), Why You Should Be a Socialist: The Case for a New Socialist Party (1977), The Helen Smith Story (1983), Ireland: Why Britain Must Get Out (1989), Who Killed Colin Wallace? (1989), and Articles of Resistance (2000). In 2002, Foot ran once more for political office—this time, for mayor of Hackney—but again lost. Though his socialist ideas made him the political underdog throughout his life in Britain, Foot's political commentary earned him a wide and appreciative audience.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Daily Post (Liverpool, England), July 20, 2004, p. 11.

Daily Telegraph (London, England), July 20, 2004, p. 1.

Financial Times, July 20, 2004, p. 5.

Guardian (London, England), July 20, 2004, p. 23.

Independent (London, England), July 20, 2004, p. 32; July 22, 2004, p. 34.

Times (London, England), July 20, 2004, p. 29.