Words as Weapons

Voted 1989 Journalist of the Year for his tireless investigative reporting, Paul Foot is that rarest of creatures--a journalist with a mass audience and a clear socialist commitment.In this sparkling collection of his writing over the past decade, Foot moves from ferocious salvoes against the Tories and their friends in high (and often low) places, through the Labour Party's feeble opposition and the socialist ideas it seems to have forgotten, to portraits of great dissenters in English radical history: Godwin, Shelley, Mary Shelley, George Orwell and Ian Botham.Paul Foot speaks in different voices to different audiences but underpinning all his work, whether it is for the Daily Mirror or the London Review of Books, lies a respect for the power of the written word to intervene--to right injustice, to expose corruption and to puncture the smug hypocrisy of a self-righteous, conspiratorial elite.

Paul Foot writes a weekly page for the Daily Mirror, and contributes regularly to Socialist Worker and the London Review of Books. He won the What the Papers Say Journalist of the Year Award twice (in 1972 and 1989) and was named Campaigning Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards in 1980. He has published numerous books including The Politics of Harold Wilson, The Rise of Enoch Powell, Red Shelley, Who Killed Hanratty?, Murder at the Farm and Who Framed Colin Wallace?