In praise of Frank Field, a true Labour hero

Frank Field has made mistakes, certainly. In 2015 he was among the group of 35 MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership, enabling the bearded-one to enter the race, which Corbyn won. Field, not a supporter of Corbyn, wanted to widen the debate, to ensure that the contest got beyond the then standard platitudes about modernisation and post-Crash catharsis. As someone who has fought the far left all his life,  Field should have known it was mad to give the Marxist maniacs even the hint of a shot on goal. They don’t exist to have a nice debate. They are anti-Labour, using it only as a vehicle. They exist to smash the market economy and anything else which gets in the way of their mad plan – tested to destruction around the world – to wage war against property rights and the West.

Notwithstanding that serious error, Field still deserves to be regarded as a true hero of the Labour movement and a great parliamentarian. Here – on the day Field announced that he has resigned the Labour whip over Corbyn’s anti-Semitism – are five reasons why he deserves to be hailed.

1) Field’s route to Labour was unorthodox. Raised by Tory parents, he was asked to leave the Conservative party in his youth because he so vocally opposed apartheid in South Africa. He became a Labour man via his Anglicanism and concern for the poor, representing a particular stand of socially conservative Labourism that is unfashionable but culturally important.

2) The young twits on the far left lambasting Field – like Squealer in Animal Farm running down from the farm house to broadcast the leadership orthodoxy – are not fit to lace his brogues. Field was tireless in defence of the poor, as director the Child Poverty Action Group and the Low Pay Unit in the 1970s. But all the time his concern was fused with an understanding that a culture of responsibility and civic mindfulness mattered as much as government money. This became Blairism, or a key strand of it. Which won Labour three elections.

3) Field properly understood the flaws of Gordon Brown (they fell out over welfare reform in 1997 when Field was briefly a minister) and he said publicly GB was not suited to be Prime Minister at a time when this was still only whispered in Labour circles. If he had been listened to, and Blair had been tougher on Brown when the Chancellor was obsessed with getting the top job, history could have been different for Labour and maybe even the country.

4) Field had and has cross-party friendships. He was friends with Margaret Thatcher. How refreshing in this era of Twitter lunacy and sanctimonious Owen Jones pile-ons that someone can be an MP for one party but have their own views and see the good in others.

5) Field voted and campaigned for Brexit and sees it as a national issue above party. It is. Not that it gets mentioned much, but many Labour voters voted for Brexit.