Published: 1:05PM GMT 03 March 2010
Link to this videoGordon Brown, the Prime Minister, led the tributes, describing Mr Foot as a "genuine British radical" who had been a "respected and unifying" personality of the Labour Party.
"Michael Foot was a man of low element and ardent faith and one of the majority expressive speakers Britain has ever heard. He was an unassailable figure who regularly stood up for his ideology and either people concluded with him or not, they dignified his impression and his steadfastness," he said.
Former Labour personality Michael Foot dies elderly 96 Michael Foot: noted quotes Tributes paid to Michael Foot, who has died elderly 96 Michael Foot: hold up in video Michael Foot: Jack Straw reverence Tony Benn writes on the genocide of Michael Foot"I recollect fondly my time with him and Jill Craigie, the love of his hold up - they both desirous me with their passion and kindness," Mr Brown added.
John Prescott, the former emissary budding minister, pronounced in a summary around Twitter: "So unhappy to listen to about Michael Foot. A good man has died. He was the heart of the movement."
Tony Benn, who stood opposite Denis Healey for Labour"s emissary care in 1981 notwithstanding Foot"s interest for him to equivocate a divisive battle, said: "He was a really challenging bard and a really absolute speaker, electrifying audiences.
"He was a good credit to the Labour movement. I know he did not win the election, but the actuality that he became personality and fought the choosing puts him in the tip list of total in the story of the party."
Ex-Cabinet apportion David Blunkett said: "In the 47 years that I have been a part of of the Labour Party, I have frequency come opposite any one as gracious, courteous and intellectually pointy as Michael Foot.
"It was a payoff to have well well known him and to have schooled from him - not simply as a politician, but as that singular breed: an egghead and a thinker.
"Everybody recognises that he was the biggest parliamentarian of his generation.
"In majority ways, his time as personality of the Labour Party authorised his opponents to lessen the outrageous status that his life-long grant to the contentment of his associate man enabled him to achieve."
Lord Healey, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ""I am really contemptible indeed. Although I disagreed with him on issues - he was far to the left of me - I was blissful to offer as his deputy.
""The good thing about Michael was that he was a shining public speaker but his visualisation was not really good.""
Lord Mandelson, First Secretary, said: "There will be a outrageous dolour opposite the celebration and opposite governing body at this news.
"I initial met Michael in the early 1980s when I worked for Albert Booth, who additionally sadly upheld afar recently. No-one was closer to Michael than Albert on the Labour frontbench and it is was there that I initial detected the stresses and strains that tumble on any one heading Labour, generally at that time in the 1980s.
"Michael was one of Labour"s prime sons and his name will be perpetually synonymous with the means of amicable justice. An historian, writer, public speaker and parliamentarian of the initial rank, Michael was one of the giants on whose shoulders today"s era of Labour politicians stand."
David Cameron, the Tory leader, described him as a ""remarkable man"".
He said: ""I"m patently not old sufficient to have been in the House of Commons at the same time, but celebration of the mass a little of his speeches (they) were incredibly powerful. He was a really intelligent, witty, comical and courteous man.
Labour"s former London Mayor Ken Livingstone said: "He was the nicest chairman I ever met at a comparison turn in politics. He had time for everybody.
"It is extraordinary that someone that good gets to the tip of the Labour Party but maybe not as well startling that someone that good didn"t win the election."
Plaid Cymru personality Ieuan Wyn Jones, Wales"s Deputy First Minister, said: "Michael Foot was a man of element and a good parliamentarian who ordered apply oneself opposite the domestic divide.
"It was my payoff and wish to have well well known him and to have served in Westminster at the same time as him where I learnt majority from his resources of believe and joining to amicable justice.
"Michael Foot was additionally a good devolutionist and I know that he was gay when the people of Wales pronounced "yes" to the origination of a National Assembly in 1997 notwithstanding wanting a some-more absolute council for Wales. His flitting is a loss to the domestic enlightenment of Wales."
Lord (Peter) Walker, Tory counterpart and former cupboard minister, said: "I am really saddened at the genocide of Michael Foot. I think I disagreed with him on roughly all in politics, but I came to admire him as a man of firmness and ardent beliefs.
"When I was Secretary of State for Wales I detected how ardent he was to urge the peculiarity of hold up of people in Wales and we worked together to assistance renovate Ebbw Vale. He was a good parliamentary public speaker and I will regularly recollect him."
Peter Hain, the Wales Secretary, said: "Michael was maybe Wales"s majority shining adopted son.
"A good friend, he gave me majority personal await over 40 years, from the Anti-Apartheid Movement to the work together on the Tribune newspaper.
"He will be sorely missed. Never again will we see such mountainous oratory, revolutionary passion and wit. Wales and Welsh Labour are in mourning."
Former Labour MP and ex-Father of the Commons Tam Dalyell said: "Michael Foot would have been a first-class Prime Minister, since he was a intelligent chooser of people and an talented delegator of colleagues.
"When I was inaugurated to Parliament in Jun 1962, I was told by colleagues "You will never see Michael Foot again". He had had a awful car collision from that they did not design him ever to recover. The perfect bravery of that man entrance behind is astonishing.
"Ironically, the collision enlarged his hold up - it stopped him chain-smoking."
Liberal Democrat personality Nick Clegg said: "Michael Foot was good parliamentarian, a good egghead and a good idealist.
"He regularly stood up for what he believed in, even if that meant mouth-watering unpopularity at times. His egghead firmness is an e.g. to everybody in politics."
Carwyn Jones, Welsh Labour personality and First Minister, said: "This is patently desperately unhappy news. We have lost a genuine domestic hulk today.
"Within Welsh Labour and the wider party, the loss will be keenly felt. Michael Foot was a good thinker, a excellent public speaker and glorious writer.
"He congested a outrageous volume in to his prolonged hold up and he led the Labour Party during one of the majority formidable durations in the history.
"Above all, he remained a extreme disciple and supporter for equivalence and amicable probity via his hold up and it is that passion for that he will regularly be fondly remembered."
Human rights supporter Peter Tatchell, who Mr Foot unsuccessfully attempted to retard as Labour"s claimant in the catastrophic Bermondsey by-election in 1983, said: "Michael Foot was wrong to reject my advocacy of extra-parliamentary protests and to primarily retard my publicity as parliamentary claimant for Bermondsey.
"But this blunder of judgment, underneath vigour from SDP turncoats, does not lessen his status as one of the majority superb British socialists and democrats of the twentieth century.
"He had the beauty to after apologize to me - an reparation that I accepted. I have never wavered in my perspective that Michael Foot was a good humanist and humanitarian, and a loyal hold up of amicable probity and human rights."
