Michael Foot Quotes
We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth
Michael Foot, British Member of Parliament (Labour), Leader of British Labour Party, Campaign Speech, 1983
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Normally, this would not be a particularly noteworthy quotation. However, at the time the Republican Party had shifted far to the right–more so than at any other time since its inception. The primary election he was in brought out the most right wing members of the party, which was for gutting the social safety net, did not see health care as a right, and even wanted to terminate Obamacare and Social Security as it existed. Yet when asked in a nationwide TV interview, what the government should do for the poor and destitute who could not afford health care or other necessities. His courageous answer and position doomed his bid for the presidential nomination.
This was a swipe at the Conservatives at the time who were opposed to a Federal Government that would actively provide assistance directly to individuals. There was a belief amongst some politicians that by assisting people in need, their character would be weakened and the people and the society would be hurt in the long run.
Michael Mackintosh Foot FRSL was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on Tribune and the Evening Standard. He co-wrote the 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, Guilty Men, under a pseudonym.
