Paul Foot

A portrait of a brilliant journalist and tireless campaigner for justice

Paul Foot was one of the most influential investigative reporters of his generation. For nearly fifty years, he was the scourge of corrupt politicians and dodgy businessmen, a champion of the underdog.

In this, the first biography of Paul Foot, journalist Margaret Renn traces Foot’s personal, political and professional trajectories, placing his life and works within the long arc of postwar Britain. Drawing on extensive interviews with those close to him, and utilizing her unparalleled knowledge of his prodigious output, the book brings the many different faces of Paul Foot together into a single portrait.

A prolific writer for the Daily Mirror, Private Eye, the Guardian and Socialist Worker, Foot’s investigations broke numerous major stories. He wrote about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events, and the issues in some of his campaigns maintained their prominence long after his death in 2004: police corruption in the Stephen Lawrence case; sexual abuse in children’s homes; the Lockerbie bombing. His books ranged from how politicians used race to win votes, through miscarriages of justice, to the politics of poetry and the failure of the vote to deliver power to the people. Paul Foot: A Life in Politics is a brilliant portrait of a committed and active socialist, orator and relentless investigator of wrongdoing.Introduction: Our Left Foot

1. Mangoes in the Bath
2. An Inky Little Boy
3. Paradise on Earth
4. No Mean City
5. The Leper
6. A Bee to the Honeypot
7. Tightnits
8. Who Killed Hanratty?
9. One Glorious Summer
10. Y, Oh Lord, Oh Why
11. Vote for Foot
12. Honey on the Elbow
13. The Ditto Man
14. Poetry and Revolution
15. Look in the Mirror
16. The Enemy Within
17. Pamphleteer
18. Baldric’s Cunning Plan
19. Who Killed Carl Bridgewater?
20. A Rattling Good Yarn
21. To Divide Is Not to Take Away
22. The Hired Bravos
23. The Great Crook
24. Back to the Honeypot
25. Head and Heart
26. Skinning the Tiger
27. Perfidious Financial Idiocy
28. The White Radiance of Eternity

Bibliography of Paul Foot Works
Notes
Index"A truly fitting tribute to Britain's foremost campaigning journalist - righter of wrongs, fighter for underdogs and tormentor of the powerful."
—Roy Greenslade, former editor, Daily Mirror

"Margaret Renn has written a compelling and highly readable account of my great friend Paul Foot's life as socialist campaigner, journalist and scion of a famous political family."
—Richard Ingrams, co-founder and editor of Private Eye and founding editor of The Oldie

"One of the great British investigative journalists of the 20th century ... The accounts of many of his press campaigns, including about the murders of Blair Peach, Helen Smith and Stephen Lawrence, still make for powerful reading."
—Martin Chilton, Independent

"A tremendous force for good ... [Paul Foot: A Life in Politics] is kind, thorough and honest."
—Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail

"Impeccably lively and well narrated."
—Stuart Jeffries, Guardian

"An admirable account of a remarkable righter of wrongs in Foot, portrayed in limpid yet powerful prose."
—NJ McGarrigle, Irish Times

"A well-written, balanced biography … If [Renn’s] book is affectionate, that is fitting, because Foot was a man who inspired affection in those who knew him."
—Adam Sisman, Spectator

"Excellent ... [Renn] witnessed first hand not just his tenacity at digging out a story or righting an injustice but also Foot’s humour, kindness and ability to see the goodness in others, even those who would be considered his natural enemies."
—Simon Evans, ChoiceMargaret Renn is a writer and journalist. She worked alongside Paul Foot on Socialist Worker and then at the Daily Mirror from the early ‘80s until 1993. She has since worked at the BBC and produced radio documentaries for Radio 4 and the World Service, including programs on Lockerbie and on corruption. From 2009 until 2015 she was a Visiting Fellow in Investigative Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.