Leo McKinstry
One Left Foot
The Vote: How It Was Won and How It Was Undermined
By Paul Foot
Viking 506pp £25 order from our bookshop
The reason why the writer and polemicist Paul Foot has such an exalted reputation has always been a mystery to me. For almost four decades, this hardline Marxist was revered as one of the great campaigning journalists of Britain, widely admired for the passion he brought to his work. Yet I found his writing dreary in the extreme; I cannot remember ever being able to finish one of his Guardian columns. I am told he had a sense of humour, but on the page he appeared capable only of alternating between ideological hectoring and leaden sarcasm.
Foot liked to boast that he had never changed his politics since he began his career as a journalist in 1961. But such iron consistency should have been a source of shame rather than pride, given the unprecedented global developments over the last forty years, from the collapse of the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma