Labour MPs using the right-wing press has been a contentious issue for Labour members for a number of years, especially since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the party and hardline opponents such as the now-departed Michael Dugher used the Murdoch press or the Daily Mail to attack him.
The innate distaste of Labour members for such right-wing, corporate publications is most universal on Merseyside, where almost every resident despises the S*n for its smears against victims and survivors of the Hillsborough disaster. So it is perhaps surprising that a Merseyside Labour MP, Frank Field, writes for that very newspaper.
Not without consequence, however. Field’s Birkenhead CLP (constituency Labour party) held its monthly general meeting and voted on a strongly-worded motion of censure proposed by its Prenton branch:
Prenton Branch condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the decision of Frank Field to write for Murdoch’s S*n. This not only flies in the face of Birkenhead public opinion and a Wirral Labour Council boycott, it rides roughshod over the memory of those who died or survived the Hillsborough tragedy and were smeared by that rag. It also causes upset to friends and family of victims and survivors.
One Prenton member has cancelled his membership due to Frank’s involvement in the gutter press. The branch feels that this is a clear case of bringing our Party into disrepute.
We call on Frank, to give a clear, unambiguous, public apology, for the hurt caused and to provide an undertaking not to contribute in any way, in future.
Field looked less than thrilled through the proceedings:
The writing was almost literally on the wall beyond him.
If he looked unhappy during the discussion, he’s alleged to have been livid after the votes were counted. A member who was at the meeting told the SKWAWKBOX:
Frank said that he would not be muzzled. He refused to give the requested commitment not to repeat the offence caused and stated that if members didn’t like it, they could deselect him.
He flounced out of the meeting, claiming that he was continuing his surgery at nearby Birkenhead Town Hall. Nobody believed that, as it was nearly 8 pm and his surgery started at 5 pm!
His parting shot was some snide comment about Jeremy Corbyn, but members shouted back at him “thanks for nominating him”, as Field provided the deciding vote, which secured JC’s place on the original ballot!
We remind him of that frequently. If he thought he was being clever at the time, and JC had no chance of winning, look how that turned out.
Frank Field once infamously dismissed the importance of the views of his constituents, telling the BBC that he had no idea what they think and that he was not the kind of MP to allow his voters to ‘direct’ him:
But those who are Labour members made their views crystal clear last night on at least one topic – unanimously.
Mr Field was contacted for comment.
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Ok Prenton Branch and Birkenhead CLP take Field up on his taunt to deselect him , the utter contempt this bloke shows the CLP and it’s membership needs to be redressed.
It takes just one instance of deselection to put the fear of God into some of these arrogant MPs who think they can despise and dispense with any pretence of loyalty and support for the membership and the Labour leadership.
Frank Field is arrogant and couldn’t care less about what poeople think, which automatically excludes him from being fit to represent Labour and their supporters.
I do hope his local CLP acts on his own words.
This does not reflect accurately what happened at the meeting. Frank Field did leave people at his surgery to come to answer critics about the Sun articlet but though the criticism was heartfelt it was also rather low key which may have disapointed some. Frank did hurry back to see the people who waited patiently at his surgery. But when did the truth ever matter?
Mr Field was given an opportunity to put his view of events and didn’t
The truth is Moira – he writes for the S*n rag and that cannot be tolerated here on Merseyside! Our Councillors backed the “Ban the S*n” campaign which is widespread throughout the county. Why should he go against the wishes of the constituents? He should be showing support. Don’t you agree?
As I recall he did acknowledge that the contribute on has caused hurt. He did say he regretted that but went on to explain his reasons which obviously are not accepted by all but he did not avoid the issue. For me it was telling that some prevent did not seem to understand the difference between a delegate and a representative. Frank is not arrogant. He is driven by conviction. The best contribution to the debate was from the person who said he recognised the good work Frank does though was very against this action. Frank accepted that. My objection to this is that it isn’t a fair account and as always anonymity which I see as the shield of the coward
The truth matters a lot Moira and my experience re Field is he is an obtuse and arrogant bloke , take a look at his past performance and there is a clear pattern ,,,
Moira McLaughlin. YOU are a local councillor and a long term member of puppet master Frank Field’s inner ring of hard right lackeys.
Where is your public condemnation of Field’s despicable conduct in a. propping up the Murdoch rag and b. promoting his perverse, unwanted, divisive right wing agenda?
I shouldn’t expect it I suppose from the likes of YOU.
With local elections in the offing, the Hillsborough families are being cynically courted to promote the electoral prospects of hard right Wirral members, behaviour which keys in with puppet master Field’s collusion with the rag.
Do YOU remember when your council stole £736,756.97 from learning disabled supported living tenants over 9 years, five of whom died? The local public certainly won’t forget.
YOU, madam, were member for social services at the time, chairing crucial meetings despite an undeclared friendship with then Director of Social Services Kevin Miller.
YOU were behind the accreditation of gangster “care” providers involved in at least one avoidable death, alleged rape, the opening up of fraudulent bank accounts and the eviction onto the streets of vulnerable tenants.
YOU were also pulling the strings behind the denials, the cover-up and the despicable bullying of whistleblower Martin Morton who was forced out of his job and onto the dole. Martin remains unemployed to this day.
Note: all of this and more were the factual findings of the Anna Klonowski and Martin Smith reports. How does it feel to YOU and your hard right colleagues to be labelled corporate bullies?
Mike Smith of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission also found that YOU, the council, discriminated against disabled people. I still have the letter. But when Councillor Simon Mountney produced it at one of your meetings, YOU pounced and had it hushed up to prevent it being minuted and members discussing it.
So don’t YOU, as a broken public servant and a member of a hidden inner ring that brings only carnage and suffering ever go into a public forum spreading untruths and announcing what might be true or otherwise.
Thank you for your thoughtsearch but were you at the meeting?
Hummm , seems to me Moira you are no unbiased innocent in this case . You certainly seem to have questions to answer from Wirral In It Together’s post , perhaps you’d like to start by answering some of them, it would help with discovering the truth perhaps ?
Bravo,Paul !!
Gobshites at council level infesting the labour party in Wirral, be warned, too.
If I’m not mistaken, there was only one councillor voted Corbyn in the two leadership elections. And it wasn’t McLaughlin. I’ve heard two claim they’re behind him & John McDonnell since.
And neither was McLaughlin Or perhaps that’s to her credit?
‘Frank is driven by conviction’ is he? He ought to be bloody convicted. He’s a snake charmer. He was convicted of the ‘benefits’ of workfare when he refused to listen to anyone but the companies running the slave labour scheme on a DWP committee. A scheme which would have worked better if it hadn’t been implemented at all, but one which cost the taxpayer tens, if not hundreds of £millions and benefitted tescos, poundland and a4e etc rather than the unemployed.
He’s a rat. A self-serving tory rat. While we have to suffer angela illeagle here in Wallasey they get what they deserve in Birkonia.
He’s given Birkenheaders their instructions – Deselect him.
They won’t though.
Moira McLaughlin. Yes, I was at the meeting. I was the member of the public who’d followed up your abuse by writing to the EHRC, so I was there to monitor and follow it up.
I gave them the detailed information and they found in my favour. And I was disgusted to watch your rabid, Field-inspired control freakery kicking in as the damaging letter was concealed from public view.
And my God, it took quite a few years for you to emerge here from under your stone and out into the public gaze didn’t it?
What’s motivating this?
◽Is the Teflon [TM] coating beginning to crack under the pressure?
◽Are you and your puppetmaster beginning to feel the heat of public disapproval?
◽Have you finally seen the writing on the wall advising you that your days of abuse are numbered?
Oh dear, Morag…
It’s not looking too good, is it? I’m sure frank’ll be grateful for your support, though. 🙂
Well said! Moira asks if you were at the meeting? I don’t know you were, but I know that she was only there to deliver her boss,and scuttled out before things got going. We had Hillsborough survivors,and friends of the 96 at that meeting,and Field and McLaughlin were only concerned with protecting their own power-base and reputations (ragged as they are).Stop misleading people Matron. You were only there for a very short time.If you want to make comment on a meeting,you should’ve stayed for the entire discussion,not run away, then parrot the propaganda of an MP who hasn’t got the guts to respond to the original article.
Councillor Moira McLaughlin. Here is the letter I refer to where Mike Smith, Chair of the Disabilities Committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, found that yes, YOU as member for social services – and Wirral Council – discriminated against disabled people.
The fact that…
◽you actively sought to cover this up
◽Mike Smith was removed from his post a matter of weeks later
◽External investigator Anna Klonowski ignored Smith’s advice to seek out the true extent of abuse and instead charged her own personal lawyers DLA Piper with kaiboshing it at public expense and in return for a £377,000 fee…
◽A blinkered tribunal judge chose not to body swerve and NOT look into the matter
…only serves to show how deep the rot goes.
Are YOU proud of your mendacious conduct?
https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/977883975032156160?s=19
But he’ll continue to write in it?
“went on to explain his reasons” – perhaps, in the interests of fairness, you could share these reasons. Then we can judge whether they justify his actions.
Interesting that you fully support him, despite his use of a tory rag to undermine labour, and continue to complain despite being reassured that Mr Field had been given, and declined, the opportunity to reply.
It seems to be you that wants only one side of the story presented.
Looks like he’s finally lost it after years of strange antics for a Labour MP.
It is no surprise that a Thatcherite guttersnipe like Frank Fields willingly climbs into the gutter to prostitute himself to a filthy right wing rag like the S*n.
No surprise at all.
He is not fit to deliver leaflets for the Labour Party, let alone be a Labour MP.
Mr Feild has long been a pain in the neck for the Labour party even Phoney Blair sacked him from his Government. He still hasn’t learnt from that incident.
Now he’s back writing for the Scum with total disregard for the people Merseyside, your time is up, Mr Field so just walk away quietly
I have always wondered why is Frank Field a Labour MP. Apart from the fact he writes a column in the Sun which as an MP for Biirkenhead should know is just not done. His views have always been at odds with most of Labours views and fir him tio say he doesn’t really know his constituents views tells you plenty. He doesn’t mind them voting for him bout doesn’t care what there concerns are. Such a person would fit more in the Conservatives Party.
I hate The S*n but I don’t want to see attacks on Frank Field over this, also there is a point to be had that in writing for The S*n you are able to reach voters who read The S*n. There is often complaint that people just remain in their bubbles. Well a Labour MP writing in The S*n is able to reach into this bubble and share their views and perhaps change people’s minds about things and get them to vote Labour.
The best message you can reach S*n readers with is don’t read the bloody S*n
Which would be all well and good if FF wasn’t constantly undermining the Labour Party in his diatribes.
I take your point, and if I remember correctly, there was a period when Ken Livingstone did a regular column in the Sun for a while. I guess it depends on what Field was saying in his article (or column or whatever) – ie was he propagandising against JC in some way or other.
The boycott of the Sun on Merseyside is great of course, but the fact that it isn’t nationwide is perhaps a reflection of how divided we are – our lack of solidarity.
The post by SteveH (and sqwawkbox) appeared whilst I was typing out my response to Dam and, as such, I didn”t see them until just after I posted mine. I should have guessed that FF was more-than-likely undermining JC in his column, and was actually going to check it out, but Steve has saved me the bother of doing so.
Dam, do you think that readers of the Scum would take any note of Field , and more over if Field didn’t follow the Scum line of thinking his articles would probably not be published and he know’s it .
Question,, why not ditch it and write for a less contentious paper like the Mirror ? Or is it he wants to make a point of being a stand out maverick .
Yet another bitter dinosaur. Get them out !!
If you write for the S*n, then you are guilty of taking Murdoch’s shilling.
I guess if you donated it to a charity or some good cause it wouldn’t be quite so bad AND if you were writing something contrary to the Sun’s propaganda – ie giving a different perspective on this topic, or that topic.
Ok, I have to add it must feel like a betrayal for Merseyside residents to have a Merseyside MP write in it, after the lies about Liverpool fans at Hillsborough, and the strength of feeling about that which still exists.
It took a while but maybe you now understand a little more regarding that rag? It’s reviled here on Merseyside and our Councillors backed banning it – Angela Eagle too. He should resign!
Frank Field, is asking for the people of Merseyside to “DESELECT HIM”!
What are you waiting for?
I have always thought and spoke, what is he doing in the “LABOUR PARTY”?
He, in my opinion, is a Tory and always as been!
“DESELECT HIM, PLEASE”.
1984 N Wales Euro election Frank FIELDS signed a half page in all the 10 constituency newspapers to warn against Ian Campbell the official Labour Candidate LP general Secretary wrote to me to apologise adding Fields has the backing of the Catholic Church and is untouchable
More or less did the same to Lol Duffy (Wallasey LP candidate) in 1987.
https://medium.com/@pitt_bob/how-angela-eagle-got-to-be-mp-for-wallasey-e30d4ad9483
I see phase 2 of the ” get Corbyn” plan is now under way with the RW PLP attacking Corbyn over anti-Semitism and Brexit purge ( supported by the Guardian as usual ) .It makes me mad a hell when I think of all the committed activists working their butts off canvassing locally to support Labour in the forth coming elections, and these BASTARDS in the right wing PLP destroy those efforts with their actions like Smith voting with the Tories and now the usual suspects using their Jewish faith as a weapon again to attack Corbyn. FFS CLPS deselect them or there will never be a real Labour govt
Many numbers in Chesterfield CLP would love to deselect their immoral shyster of an MP, Toby Perkins, puppet to the just-as-amoral Liz Kendall.
As one of the vice-chairs for Progress, he’s now ducking and diving with all attempts to keep him in a job as MP, with changes to standing orders and breaking up the largest branch (who happened to oppose him)
Calling for party unity when he’s under attack and signing letters of condemnation or resigning from his poxy junior ministerial post when he gets told they need to oust the party leader.
He’s as stupid and transparent as he is ineffective, having delivered nothing of any substance to his constituents since day one.
Self-serving pawn.
I’ve always thought Field was misplaced in the LP, especially as a Merseyside MP. After reading this article, I believe he should be deselected at the earliest opportunity. ‘Will not be muzzled’? That says it all for me. What an absolute disgrace.
Isn’t it Frank’s position that it is better to write good stuff in the S*n than the bad stuff that’s there. He might persuade a few Tories round to a better way of thinking? I appreciate the relationship between Liverpool and this rag and I fully support the ban – and want to see it extended across the country. (I also bunged stacks of them out of sight during the election). Frank is a complicated figure. He doesn’t accept political correctness from any side but he is genuinely and wholeheartedly committed to helping the poor. His insight to the reality and the issues surrounding poverty is unmatched in government today. He is often on the wrong side of Labour consensus but more because I think we are sometimes on the wrong side of reality.
Pimateers , see my response to Dam above , chances of persuading Scum Tory readers ,,,, Zero
pimatters 25/03/2018 at 10:15 am
“He doesn’t accept political correctness from any side but he is genuinely and wholeheartedly committed to helping the poor. His insight to the reality and the issues surrounding poverty is unmatched in government today”
——————————————-
How, exactly? By his ‘laissez-faire’ attitude – In fact, his wholehearted ENCOURAGEMENT of the workfare programme? Taxpayer-funded subsidies to the corporates in the way of free labour? Thereby putting people in non-subsidised, low paid jobs out of work? Increased use of sanctioning (I hate that word) of people on the workfare scheme?
Nah. They’re just some examples dummkopf-schmitt style ‘arbeit macht frei’ school of policies towards the poor.
Moving them to container units under motorway bridges was another…
And here’s something he’s never denied or refuted
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/birkenhead-mp-frank-field-tells-3320350
“BIRKENHEAD MP Frank Field – one of Lady Thatcher’s closest personal friends on the Labour benches…”
Says it all…’kin tory in all but name.
Here’s how ‘committed’ field is to the poor, @pimatters
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/29/frank-fields-welfare-contribution-plan
Tellingly absent from the table was anyone from Field’s own party. Field laments the job new shadow welfare secretary Rachel Reeves has to do. “Rachel’s got to say she’ll be tougher than the Tories on welfare. The trouble is the public don’t believe us”.
You might want to take another guess now.
This is from a comment in the ‘Labour List’ some time ago:
Frank Field the former member of the Conservative Party that Maurice “Dotty” Glassman wanted appointed to the Department of Work and Pensions in order to demonstrate to the great unwashed that Labour was serious about being tough on welfare? The man who once wanted the unemployed to be forced to sign on several times a day to ensure they weren’t moonlighting and suggested stripping benefits from the young unemployed, leaving them with nothing, after a certain amount of time, if they failed to get jobs in areas of high employment (no matter how hard they tried)? Remember Frank? David Cameron’s very own tame pet Labour MP and currently eclipsed so called Poverty Tsar, author of a universally unappreciated and unread report commissioned by the current Tory controlled Coalition before being binned? In 2008, Frank Field was named as the 100th most-influential right-winger in the United Kingdom by the Telegraph.
This is from Wikipedia so please don’t blame me if it’s bollocks or common knowledge – I hadn’t heard it before.
“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 Major went on to be Prime Minister.”
How close a ‘friend’ must he have been to be invited in, much less have his advice listened to? Ugh. Was he her bitch all the time?
I only looked him up because I thought I vaguely remembered him as having been a leftie in the late 60’s.
Don’t know how I got that idea – tripping maybe.
I don’t think we should be talking about de-selections but should perhaps talk about SELECTIONS. Sitting MPs have every right to try to stand again on their records but we also have the right to choose someone else if we think they could serve a potential Jeremy Corbyn Labour Govt. better – it’s called DEMOCRACY and from my perspective I will be voting for a Left Wing Democratic Socialist.
There was an interesting snippet in last weeks Sunday Times (18/3/18) in which a Right Wing Labour MP was quoted as saying that if a Left Wing Corbyn Labour Government was elected then his like should “sit as an Independent block in Parliament.” Mmmn… I wonder if they would like to share this nugget at Parliamentary Selection Meetings with the members who will be choosing a Prospective LABOUR Parliamentary Candidte (and who will subsequently work their butts off trying to get a LABOUR MP elected) – all we ask is for potential candidates to be HONEST before rather than after the event!
If we can get Jeremy in then I believe that this Labour Govt. could be possibly be more exciting than the 1945 General Election Victory Govt. and perhaps “Only the stars will ride the storm.”
Here’s to a potentially exciting journey!
Yours in Solidarity!
Birkenhead CLP members, please deselect this guy
Jeeze it’s mundane across the river at G&H the biggest concern at our CLP meeting was whether the chair would last out the meeting with his cold, although we did get 7 (all of them) Corbyn supporters through to conference!
Frank is an enigma for sure, on the face of it he is a caring person which is in contrast with some of his ideas and voting patterns, It has been mentioned about the slave Labour of our youth which was an horrendous policy he pushed, his soft persona coverers his hard right politics, the wirral has its problems in fact all Merseyside has with many of out MPs parachuted into safe seats. re-selection is the only way forward
Terry, there is nothing ‘enigmatic’ about field. It’s only too evident to see what he’s about.
He’s been Birkonia’s MP for almost 40 years and has gone from actively encouraging neighbouring CLP’s to vote AGAINST candidates HE doesn’t approve of, to having nothing to offer politically to today’s labour party; having gone so far to the right – or, as he’d euphemistically put it: ‘gone in accordance with the centre ground’
He has, over that time, become more tory than 60% of today’s toerags. (And that’s with the dividing line having been dragged way over to the right)
He started at 20% more tory. 🙁
“Soft persona” my perfectly rounded buttocks.
Councillor Moira McLaughlin. Some advice. Please take a break from hammering the poor people of Rock Ferry and beyond to read and digest…
Corbyn has already apologised for Labour’s involvement in Iraq, which is hygely welcome but…
Let’s wheel out some LOCAL apologies. Let’s apologise for the theft of £736,756.97 from learning disabled supported living tenants over a 9 year period. At least five of them are now dead.
And while we’re there let’s apologise for the four-year cover up that failed. Then let’s apologise for forcing the whistleblower out of his job – who remains unemployed to this day, 7 years later – and let’s apologise deeply for offering peanuts to the abused people THREE times before we got dragged kicking and screaming and forced into refunding the full amount.
Then let’s apologise as Labour Councillors for not offering to be investigated by Anna Klonowski when we had the chance to prove that there was no collusion between councillors and alleged “care” providers.
Then let’s apologise for accrediting gangster “care” providers who took hundreds of pounds per week per resident but abused them and / or evicted them, under our watch.
Then let’s apologise for hiding away the BALLS ROAD aspect of the abuse, which would have taken the total figure stolen to WELL OVER £1 million pounds.
Then let’s apologise for the fact that when the reimbursements were eventually paid back many years later, the DWP said they would treat them as WINDFALLS and dock the benefits of the victims. This should have been envisaged by the abusive officers, but no, it wasn’t and they got off scot free, pocketing £110,000 each from the public coffers.
I could go on, but there are far too many additional scandals to recall in detail. All of the above are not allegations. They are proven and are admitted in a very vague manner here on the hard right ToryLabour Wirral Council website:
https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/957605027098578944
p.s. Before you respond with hairtrigger stupidity, I am a socialist, not a Tory.
You should ponder on the above cruelty and think about the suffering of others.
Hope you find a decent left alternative to unseat Field in the next round of selections.
Richard Dennis.
Is this the same Frank Field (from Wikipedia)?
He was a Director of the Child Poverty Action Group 1969–79, and of the Low Pay Unit (a body that campaigned to ensure wages councils protected the rights of workers in certain industries) during 1974–80.
In June 2010 he was appointed by David Cameron’s coalition government to head an independent review into poverty,[14] which proposed adopting a new measure centred around life-chance indicators and increasing funding for early years education.[15][16][17] In an interview in September 2012, Field considered the government to have ignored his report, saying “nothing had been done about it” and that it was “very disappointing”.[18]
In October 2013, along with Laura Sandys, Field established the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger and Food Poverty, which he went on to chair. He also chaired a parliamentary inquiry into hunger commissioned by the APPG which reported in December 2014.[19][20] Field became the chair of trustees of Feeding Britain, a charitable organisation set up in October 2015 to implement the recommendations made by the APPG.[21]
Following the 2015 general election, it was announced in June 2015 that he had been elected to the chairmanship of the Work and Pensions Select Committee. Field nominated Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015,[23] stating that while he did not think Corbyn could win a general election, he hoped his candidacy would force the party to confront its ‘deficit denial’.[24][25]
In December 2017, during a debate on Universal Credit, Field described the impact that Universal Credit changes had had on his constituents. His observations moved Work and Pensions Select Committee member Heidi Allen to tears. Field spoke of how he had talked a man out of suicide and how one claimant felt “lucky” his family was invited to eat food leftover from a funeral.[2
If it is, forgive me if I am puzzled by the level of vituperation.