To those (of a certain age) living in the alternative timeline (of reality), Michael Foot might be familiar as 'that old bloke in the donkey jacket' who led the Labour Party to a catastrophic defeat at the 1983 General Election. Ah yes, those in the know will say, but at the 1935 General Election.....
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| Michael Foot, aged 22, 1935 |
At the General Election of 1935, Michael Foot fought his first Parliamentary seat in the constituency of Monmouth, just on the borders of Herefordshire and (traditionally) safely Conservative. Although Foot obtained a creditable swing (of some 7.5%) in favour of the Labour Party, the result was:
John Herbert (Conservative) 23,262
Michael Foot (Labour) 13,454
Foot had been President of the Oxford Union in the Michaelmas Term 1933, and then graduated (with a second in PPE) from Oxford in the summer of 1934. On any basis, he was therefore extremely young for his first attempt to get into Parliament at the November 1935 General Election.
What would the young Michael Foot have done in 1938, during the Very British Civil War? There is no doubt that he would have been a hero of the Socialist faction, scribbling away as a journalist in Fleet Street, or possibly touring the country preaching for a "Popular Front" of the fragmented left. Although Foot would undoubtedly have rejected "the appalling excesses" of the notorious Comrade Colonel Professor Winters and his Herefordshire Communists, given Foot's previous knowledge of Monmouthshire, it is very possible that his speaking campaigns would have extended into Herefordshire itself...
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| On the stump - Foot in Herefordshire, 1938. Or possibly in Plymouth, 1945. |
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| Foot's loudspeaker equipped "Propaganda Van" would have faced stiff competition in Herefordshire - see HERE for the BUF opposition, and HERE for a Herefordshire Communist example. |
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| Michael Foot - VBCW "Socialist Hero" |
Add Edit: Kenneth O. Morgan's eponymous biography notes of Monmouth in 1935; "...It was marked by the remaining influences of great houses - Lord Tredegar or the Dukes of Beaufort. It was strong hunting country, and the Beaufort Hunt was an ancient local institution: here was a pastime that Foot particularly disliked, for social as much as for humane reasons.....the fledgling Labour candidate fought a spirited, even sparkling, campaign. Foot's (election) address and speeches focussed on the twin themes of peace and poverty. "The armaments race must be stopped now," and the League of Nations supported, including in the current crisis caused by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. At home, there should be public ownership of all major industries and banks ('exchange' had been added to 'production' and 'distribution' in Clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution at the 1934 party conference), together with social reforms...including a minimum wage and the abolition of tied cottages..."
