Spain and the Civil War gets a chapter on its own, and towards the end Mr Rosen traces the interminable battles over nuclear disarmament.Tories who think their present difficulties are insurmountable should be cheered by this account. Often the story is dominated by the clash between the party’s Left and Right, but many of the arguments now seem weirdly out of date The outline remains, but the passion has long since faded. Politics is often about the moment: capture the mood and you may capture your party. What then happens, of course, is another matter.This book covers a wide range of dramatic moments, from the creation of the Labour Representation Committee – the start of the Labour Party – at the end of the 19th century, right through to the run-up to Tony Blair’s great victory of 1997. If only six MPs had voted the other way the most popular politician in the country would have won instead of Mr Foot and the recent history of British politics might have been radically different.

Michael Foot, in their eyes, was “Real Labour”.Mr Foot beat Mr Healey by 139 votes to 129. Others, including the formidable Denis Healey, might also be able to mount a devastating attack on the government’s economic policy but to many Labour MPs he looked like a trimmer. He gave the battered Labour troops the sense that a breakthrough was possible. “Lest any objector should suggest that the act at the Palace Theatre was only a trick, I should assure the House that the magician used to come along at the end and say ‘I am sorry, I have still forgotten the trick.’”What Mr Foot’s speech achieved was similar to the effect that David Cameron managed in Blackpool. I have forgotten the rest of the trick.’ It does not work.” As Labour MPs roared with laughter at the obvious reference to the monetarist experiment, Mr Foot continued in mock-serious vein.

He would step to the front of the stage and say ‘I am very sorry. The magician would relieve him of a marvellous gold watch, and proceed to smash it with a mallet.”Then on his countenance,” Mr Foot explained with relish, “would come exactly the puzzled look of the Secretary of State for Industry. When he asked for an expensive watch, a plant in the audience would rise to his feet. His target was Sir Keith Joseph, the highly intelligent but rather dotty Trade and Industry Secretary, who once jumped into a taxi and shouted at the driver “Where am I going?” Foot claimed that Sir Keith, with his puzzled and forlorn manner, reminded him of a magician he used to see in his youth at a theatre in Plymouth. It was the monetarists’ insistence that you could accurately measure the money supply, and when this figure rose too rapidly all you had to do was to jack up interest rates, which Labour rightly scorned.This was where Michael Foot’s brilliant speech came into its own. The Labour government had accepted that to combat inflation some attempt should be made to control the money supply. It is a blessed relief.The most important “ism” that Labour had to tackle at this stage was “monetarism”; it was only later that “Thatcherism” emerged as a far more potent Tory doctrine.