This is going to cause some ructions:
Why did the former Labour leader take money from Moscow for years, asks Charles Moore .
No, the allegation is not that he was a knowing agent (as is said of Jack Jones) or worse (Philby, Burgess etc etc).
Just that he took money from the KGB during little chats for a period of perhaps 20 years.
Or maybe it won\’t cause any ructions….perhaps those who would be appalled by such already assumed it of him?
Nothing would surprise me any more regarding the pro-Soviet inclinations of Socialists of that era. Too many have already been outed as spies, traitors, agents of influence and ‘useful idiots’.
It should be to the eternal shame of the Left that so many of its members wished to see this country sold down the river to a totalitarian dictatorship.
But the Left have no shame, so it will be brushed under the carpet, just like all the others.
I would be far more impressed by this if it had been published during Foot’s lifetime. Dead men cannot sue for libel and this is merely a cowardly smear.
Er, Kelvin… they *were* published during his lifetime, in 1995 (he sued the Times and won libel damages — not surprising given the libel laws here).
This was all mentioned in the piece Tim linked to, so I think we can assume that you didn’t even bother to read that.
Personally I’d be surprised if he wasn’t taking KGB money. He was the editor and managing director of Tribune, after all. It’s inconceivable that the KGB wouldn’t have been offering him money. So the only question is whether he took it or not.
Pray do not forget that the current generation of left wing politicians were promoted by those of Foot’s generation- presumably as likely to advance their cause rather than the country’s
The estimable Viktor Suvorov once remarked in one of his books (Aquarium, if I remember correctly) that he and his fellow GRU operatives could understand people who betrayed their country for money, as they’d all have done the same if they thought they would get away with it, but that they despised and detested those who did so for ideological reasons.
So by that standard Footy really wasn’t the most disgusting possible human being.
I remember being astonished when I went to Poland perhaps in 1979, when it was still partof the Warsaw Pact. I was paid a small subsistence allowance, as all official visitors apparently were, even though I was there as a salesman for an American company: our client was the shipping and ship-building industry. Were the payments to Michael Foot something similar, I wonder?
I hope I am not too late.
Kelvin Kid has half a point.
Oleg Gordievsky had guts. He published while Michael Foot was alive.
Charles Moore kept his head down till Foot was dead, no longer around to put his side.
That does not look good me.