Politics, Poverty and Belief: A Political Memoir by Frank Field

REVIEWER: Ali Hull

BOOK: Politics, Poverty and Belief: A Political Memoir

(Bloomsbury Continuum 2024) 208p, paperback, RRP £10.99

With so many politicians caught up in scandal, it is refreshing to realise they really aren’t ‘all the same’. Veteran Labour MP Frank Field, who died in late April 2024, is a case in point. In his memoir, he tracks his development as a ‘political animal’ and shows how his strong Christian faith influenced his political beliefs and practice. In the first part of the book, he explores the thinkers and writers who had the greatest impact on him, from St Nicholas Chiswick, the church he attended as a boy, through his lecturers and beyond. 

The first part of the book wrestles with the theory of politics, and is a little dry, but the second part of the book is far more readable. One phrase that comes up again and again is helping or enabling people to become ‘their best selves’. It is clear that, to him, this is what politics should be all about, and he was willing to consider any idea, from whatever source, that might further this goal. He describes many of the campaigns he initiated: some failed but many succeeded, and he had a huge impact for good, in his constituency and beyond. These campaigns include the sale of council houses, for which he was vilified (but he puts up a good rationale for it); the setting up of Child Benefit, the minimum wage, fighting modern slavery and protecting the environment, improving the experience of children in their early years and, particularly in later years, the battle to stop people going hungry. 

Finally, the book documents his battles with Jeremy Corbyn, who Field believes did little either to curb the growing anti-Semitism in the party, or to stop what Field describes as the ‘thuggery’ of Momentum, a sub-group with the Labour party. His protests led, much to his surprise, to him being thrown out of the Labour party – an utterly undeserved action, given his service both to the party and the country.  

Reviewer: Ali Hull
Ali Hull is Book Editor for Preach magazine. Fascinated by politics, she is also a former editor of the Christian Democrat newspaper.