Come on Frank, nearly there...

Back in April I blogged twice about the possibility of Frank Field crossing the chamber of the House of Commons and joining the Conservative party. Here I blogged about a blog of entry of his where he wrote

"Harold Wilson asserted that the Labour party was a moral crusade or it was nothing. The McBride affair has left Labour members looking at nothing. That is the reality check that McBride has wrought on the party.

The whole of the government's energy should be spent on governing now and building a programme from which, within and year, we will be seeking permission to rule for another five years.

Far from helping sketch out a new roadmap, the McBride activities shine a searchlight on the paucity of the government's programme.

Week after week MPs have been turning up but with almost no serious work to do. There is the odd bill to be sure. But there is no legislative programme to speak of. Even the debates that are put on to fill in time are ones that deny MPs a vote. The whole exercise is vacuous.

...

We have lived through an age of record public expenditure provision, but are now entering one of increasing cuts. There have been some beneficial results from this huge tax-payer largesse, but they in no way match up to what radicals predicted would be the outcome.

...

A necessary government information machine has been corrupted by a spin that seeks not to inform but control and, if needs be destroy. And it has been in existence for over a decade.

McBride sat on the Prime Minister's political War Cabinet. If this is the war the Prime Minister thinks the country wants he is in for a very rude awakening. In the meantime, Labour supporters are left bewildered and wondering what happened to the moral crusading side of our mission.

Poor old Labour party."

Whilst the next day I blogged that Frank Field had just discussed the economic crisis facing the UK

" The 30 per cent fall in sterling over the past year is cheerfully presented as opening up huge new export opportunities. While these opportunities seem somewhat delayed in registering in the balance of payments, its inflationary stimulus is already all too apparent. Despite the ever-present predictions of deflation, three of the four official price measurements are now on an upward path. The first signs of difficulty in raising any of the new walloping tranches of debt will not only result in long-term interest rates rising, no matter what the Bank of England gets up to in printing money, but will push sterling into yet another nosedive. Rising long-term interest rates and a collapse in sterling will place a firm grip around the government’s throat...

The government not only has a moral duty now to cut public expenditure, but may be forced to do so by its inability to borrow on the scale necessary. The price demanded for a continual and adequate supply of credit will be to begin now — and not after the next election — the Herculean task of bringing government spending nearer to what it can raise in taxes.

...

The threat to the country’s solvency is now so serious that both opposition and government need to use next week’s Budget on what needs to be done this year to begin rebuilding the country’s solvency."

So I was interested to read this article in The Guardian. The piece is entitled "Cameron, Mr Audacious" with a subheading of "The Conservative leader could be accused of stealing Labour's clothes, but this is certainly not a man we should ridicule". The article itself is well worth a read and ends thus:

"This thinking needs to be taken much further, but it is a wonderfully bold beginning and Labour must rise to the challenge.

Labour's normal stock response of trying to ridicule him simply will not do. Cameron's aim is clear. It is to turn traditional party politics upside down. The time for jeering at Cameron is over. Labour's survival will now entail outmatching his programme."

Certainly many of the comments after the piece are of the opinion that Frank Field will/should move to a position in the Conservative party. Albaba thinks that "A place in Cameron's cabinet?" is his for the asking. Tony Blair asked Frank Field to think the unthinkable on social security reform and resigned rather than be moved to another department.

Here's a few other facts about Frank Field that may ease his move to the Conservative party, from Wikipedia,

"Two nights before the Conservative Party leadership election in November 1990, he visited then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street. He advised her that her time as Prime Minister was drawing to a close and that she should back John Major to take over the role. His reason for doing so was that he felt that her Conservative colleagues would not tell her straight that she could not win a leadership contest. Following this meeting, he was smuggled out of Downing Street's back door. Two days later Margaret Thatcher supported John Major for the post, and he would go on to be Prime Minister."

"Field's political stance has been somewhat at odds with the rest of the Parliamentary Labour Party in recent years.[citation needed] He is a member of the advisory board of the free-market think tank Reform, and of the new conservative magazine Standpoint. In May 2008, he said that Margaret Thatcher "is certainly a hero" and that "I still see Mrs T from time to time – I always call her 'Mrs T', when I talk to her." Although there have been attempts to get him to defect to the Conservatives, they have been without success. In 2008, Frank Field was named as the 100th most-influential right-winger in the United Kingdom by the Telegraph. Field supports the return of National service to tackle growing unemployment and instil “a sense of order and patriotism” in Britain’s young men and women.

...

Field is a practising Anglican, and is chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust, and a member of the Church of England General Synod."

So what are you going to do Frank? David Cameron and the Conservatives would love a big Labour name to defect in the run up to the general election and Frank Field would be top of their want list.