It is not a usual tactic of ambitious politicians to flee the country on the eve of a leadership election. Yet, two days after Jim Callaghan informed the Labour Shadow Cabinet in October 1980 of his intention to resign as party leader, Michael Foot left for Dublin. From the pulpit of St Patrick’s Anglican Cathedral, Foot gave a lecture on the eighteenth-century Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift. Foot said little of contemporary politics. He had all but ruled himself out from the forthcoming party leadership election, telling the press his candidacy was “highly improbable.”

Yet, back in London, left-wingers were scuttling about to identify the strongest candidate to stop the heir apparent, Denis Healey. Healey was rated by Callaghan as the strongest member of the Shadow Cabinet, yet his tenure as chancellor of the exchequer from 1974 to ’79 had proved highly controversial. In order to curb inflation, Healey sought wage control and a humiliating loan from the International Monetary Fund. Healey explained at the 1976 Labour Party conference in Blackpool that the IMF loan “means sticking to the very painful cuts in public expenditure on which the government has already decided.” He was shouted at by furious conference delegates, with calls of “Resign!” Behind Healey, members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) looked on, shaking their heads in disgust.

It was these same NEC members, as well as union leaders and assorted left-wing MPs, who showed up at Foot’s house in Hampstead upon his return from Dublin. Their mission was to persuade the shadow leader of the House to change his mind. Among their number included the Yorkshire area president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill. One of the conspirators was seen carrying a crate of wine through the front door. Foot’s father, Isaac, a Liberal MP of the dissenting tradition, had been a strict teetotaler. Michael Foot had no such scruples. Foot’s talented filmmaker wife Jill Craigie provided further encouragement and refreshment.