The finest political biographer of the age, it is as an essayist that Michael Foot remains in a class of his own. Here are fifty years of essays; from the death of Stalin in 1953 to his reflections on 'a better way to abolish the weapons' in 2003, the same depth of feeling is deployed throughout this wide-ranging collection.

Michael Foot was leader of the Labour Party from 1980 until 1983.