While politically my views generally tally with Mr Foot’s, I know people across the political spectrum admired his integrity, passion, and commitment to the causes he believed in. That’s not to say he was perfect – no one is – by all accounts he was disastrous as Labour leader in the early 1980s, and he made an odd, weak defence of the Falklands War. But he was a skilled orator, a brilliant parliamentarian, and that is something lamentably lacking in today’s era of the political soundbite and glib media manipulation. Shall we see his (and Tony Benn’s) like again?

My own tiny tribute – Michael Foot in Quotations – is up on the OUPblog this morning.