Strange bedfellows

I have a lot of time for Frank Field (Labour MP) he's one of the few Labour MP's who actually favour an English Parliament rather than brushing the whole matter under the rug and opting for regionalism so beloved of the generic Labourista clones who inhabit the party for the simple reason that it will allow them (so they think) to keep some sort of power in various regions rather than losing it as a whole.

Times.

Frank Field, one of Labour's most high-profile MPs, provoked his party today by appearing alongside David Cameron at an election event.

The socially conservative MP for Birkenhead, a persistent thorn in the side of Gordon Brown, indicated he was not defecting to the Conservatives. But he risked an internal party rift when he said that "more of the same" would not end poverty.

His appearance, at a Demos think-tank event, will be a fresh blow for Labour morale.

Mr Field agreed to attend at the invitation of Demos, which today launched a year-long investigation into the subject of character. One of the Labour MP's longstanding interests is the role of parents in forming their children's personalities.

Both he and Mr Cameron agree that politicians should give more attention to helping parents bring up children because this is an important way of helping their prospects later in life. 

Politics makes for strange bedfellows and whilst I can see that Frank Field would have a lot in common with Cameron and the the Demos study, he will probably have a lot less time for some of the other stuff Cameron is coming up with. For one thing Mr Field is far more an EUsceptic than Cameron has proven to be, he favours full devolution for the UK in a federal system, he's totally in favour of family values as opposed to what Labour have cultivated in state sanctioned family values, he's also very much a true Englishman as opposed to one of Cameron's "sour little Englanders"

Still knowing Frank Field, he probably reckons Cameron is the lesser of two evils and went for the opportunity of sticking the knife into Gordon Brown, don't blame him, but it's still odd company to keep for one of the good guys. He'd probably make a better leader of the Conservatives than Cameron as well.