Paul Foot author page

Paul Foot biography

Paul Foot (1937–2004) was a British investigative journalist, campaigner and author. He wrote for Private Eye, the Daily Mirror and later The Guardian, developing a distinctive style of campaigning reporting that pursued miscarriages of justice and political wrongdoing.

Foot published a wide range of books spanning politics, literature and law. Notable titles include Red Shelley (1981), a study of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s radical politics; Murder at the Farm: Who Killed Carl Bridgewater? (1986), arising from his long-running investigation into the Bridgewater Four case; Who Framed Colin Wallace? (1989), on intelligence and Northern Ireland; and the essay collection Words as Weapons: Selected Writing 1980–1990 (1990). His final work, The Vote: How It Was Won and How It Was Undermined, appeared posthumously in 2005.

His journalism was widely recognised – he was named What the Papers Say journalist of the year in 1972 and 1989, campaigning journalist of the year at the 1980 British Press Awards, and shared the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 1995. In his memory, the Paul Foot Award for investigative and campaigning journalism was established in 2005 and is run by Private Eye. A specific, verifiable milestone: The Vote was published by Viking in 2005.