Former Labour minister Frank Field dies aged 81... a wonderful man
Former Labour minister and crossbench peer Frank Field has died aged 81, his family has announced.
"He will be mourned by admirers across politics but above all he will be greatly missed by those lucky enough to have enjoyed his laughter and friendship," a statement said.
Lord Field spent 40 years as MP for Birkenhead and was a leading voice on welfare reform for much of his career.
He was a minister under Tony Blair and joined the House of Lords in 2020.
A statement from Lord Field of Birkenhead's family, issued by his Parliamentary office, said he had died following a period of illness.
"Frank was an extraordinary individual who spent his life fighting poverty, injustice and environmental destruction," the statement said.
"His decency and faith in people's self-interested altruism made a unique contribution to British politics."
The politician announced in 2021 that he was suffering from a terminal illness. He died in a London care home on Tuesday night.
Lord Field briefly served as minister for welfare reform in Tony Blair's first term in government.
Paying tribute, Sir Tony said in a statement: "Frank had integrity, intelligence and deep commitment to the causes he believed in.
"He was an independent thinker never constrained by conventional wisdom, but always pushing at the frontier of new ideas.
"Even when we disagreed, I had the utmost respect for him as a colleague and a character."
Labour MP Harriet Harman, who was secretary of state for social security when Lord Field was a minister in the department, said he was "clever, persistent and caring".
"At Frank's core was the conviction that poverty was never to be accepted and could be ended," she added.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting described him as "a great parliamentarian, crusader for social justice and source of wise counsel".
"What a blessing to have known him and benefited from his advice and kindness, even as his illness gripped him," he said.
Dame Angela Eagle, MP for neighbouring constituency Wallasey, said on social media: "Very sad news. Always supportive of me as his Parliamentary neighbour, brimming with ideas to make society better - a great champion of his Birkenhead constituents."
Lord Field had built a reputation as one of the most effective backbenchers in the House of Commons, with campaigns against poverty and for curbs on EU immigration.
He quit Labour's group in Parliament in 2018, saying Jeremy Corbyn's leadership had become "a force for antisemitism in British politics".
He stood as an independent candidate in Birkenhead at the 2019 general election, finishing second with 17% of the vote.
He was made a non-affiliated, crossbench peer by the Conservative government in 2020, after campaigning in favour of Brexit.
The veteran politician was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2021, describing it at the time as a "terrific privilege".
Pass the sick-bag.
ReplyDeleteYour sycophantic hypocrisy turns the stomach.
Mr Field was a member of the Liberal-Left [as is Harriet Harman whom you attempted to smear as a supporter of paedophilia all last week], and as is Wes Streeting and Tony Blair. That same liberal left of which you wrote two days ago as follows:
"Recent discussions on here have made me realize how much I have always loathed the pinko/liberal extreme Left. I loathe all aspects: the intolerance, the atheism, the political correctness, the hypocrisy, the brown rice, the soya milk, the lentils, the low fat yogurt. I loathe how the Left pay lip service to the principle of freedom of speech - but not if this involves something it does not wish to hear."
What a despicable little twerp you are.
Frank Field was not a member of the pinko/liberal extreme Left.
DeleteTony Blair pinko/liberal!!! Ha! Ha! Ha! It's the way you tell 'em Detters.
And, lest we forget, the repulsive hypocrisy of some practitioners of the Catholic faith - people like Gene "Fetherlite" Vincent - was also seen in action at St Joseph's Church, Penole, in California in 1985. And what an example it set to the rest of the world...
ReplyDeleteHad Ratzinger unfrocked Kiesle in 1985, the abuse of children at St Joseph's would not have continued for a further three years. That is a FACT, no matter how often you try to deny it.
Ratzinger's apology in full reads as follows [my footnotes}:
“I can only express to all the victims [1] of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness. I have had great responsibilities [2] in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses [3] and the errors [4] hat occurred in those different places [5] during the time of my mandate."[6]
1 ALL THE VICTIMS, Gene: victimS, plural: you can tell this by the S on the end of the word. All the victims of sexual abuse that occurred during Ratzingers time as Archbishop of Munich [1977- 1982] and later head of the Congregation of the Faith and Pope - that is, 1985 - 2013. The phrase "ALL THE VICTIMS therefore must include the victims of Stephen Kiesle between the years 1985-1988, when Ratzinger failed to unfrock Kiesle. [2] I HAVE HAD GREAT RESPONSIBILITES [see 1 above]: and one of those was to detect, root out and expel priests and others in the Catholic Church whose favourite hobby was buggering small boys and raping little girls. These GREAT RESPONSIBILITIES obviously include those children abused by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him in 1985. [3] THE ABUSES - these must include the abuses committed by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him [unless you can prove differently, Gene?].
[4] THE ERRORS - these must include Ratzinger's failure to unfrock Kiesle in 1985 and probably his failure to alert Fr Thomas Ryan that he was allowing a convicted paedophile rapist to minister to the young people in his church.
[5] THOSE DIFFERENT PLACES - except, of course at St Joseph's Church, Penole, CA, where Stephen Kiesle, still a priest, continued to abuse children during the years 1985-1988 - Ratzinger made it clear that his apology did not include this, didn't he, Gene, and you can prove that, can't you? What's that? oh, you can't? Dear me, and YOU call ME a lying tosser... [5] DURING MY MANDATE: that is, during the years 1985 - 2013.
It is clear to anyone whose mind has a greater ratiocinatory capacity than a pair of skid-marked underpants that Ratzinger was apologising for all the sexual abuse committed on his watch 1985-2013 by priests whom he failed either properly to oversee, accurately to diagnose and condignly to punish, as well as arranging for their being unable to access children and young people ever again.
"I can only express to ALL the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness." It's that word ALL that gives it away, Gene: I'm sorry if it's confusing. Stuff your pissy little opinions up your arse. I will not apologise for telling the truth, and I will go on telling it until you acknowledge that it is the truth. In the meantime, I continue to wait for your answer to this:
"Detters can we leave A.N. WILSON and ARIANNA HUFFINGTON behind?"
Not until you have dealt honestly with this example of your lying bastardy:
'Gene writes beautifully - something not always the case with authors of trail-blazing literary works.' [A.N. WILSON]
"The genius of James Joyce is alive and well and living amongst us. His name is Gene Vincent." [A.N. WILSON]
'I was enthralled. A new star has shot into the literary firmament. [ARIANNA HUFFINGTON]
When you are going to admit that you have made these reviews and their authors up? Make no mistake: I am going to keep on asking until you tell the truth, or I lose patience, inform Mr Wilson and Ms Huffington and let nature take its course.
FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, APRIL 18th 2010:
ReplyDeleteTHE ABUSER WHO WANTED TO BE DEFROCKED [1]
BY VICTORIA KIM APRIL 18, 2010 12 AM PT
In the early summer of 1978, police arrived at a Union City church looking for the younger of its two pastors, Stephen Kiesle. He was away, so officers informed the senior pastor, Father George Crespin, that Kiesle was wanted for molesting six children at the church and that there was a warrant for his arrest. When Kiesle returned to the city south of Oakland, Crespin confronted him with the allegations. Kiesle sighed. He seemed relieved, as if he had been waiting for this day to come, Crespin recalled. Kiesle surrendered to authorities and eventually pleaded no contest to criminal charges of molesting children. A few years later, in 1981, he asked to be defrocked, something that would require Vatican approval. Crespin thought Kiesle’s request, which was supported by the Diocese of Oakland, would be quickly granted.
But in a 1985 letter made public last week, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican’s chief enforcer of doctrine and now Pope Benedict XVI, declined to immediately defrock Kiesle, citing the priest’s young age and the “good of the Universal Church.” It would be two more years before the Vatican finally granted the request. Crespin was shocked by Rome’s reluctance.
“We didn’t anticipate the obstacles that we were going to have to face in Rome,” Crespin recalled in an interview with The Times at his current church in Berkeley. “It was like a friendly divorce. . . . We thought, as they say in the sports world, that it was going to be a slam dunk. . . . It was so clear that this is what should be done, and to have [the Vatican] not see it that way was frustrating.”
The letter has become a flash point in the current debate over the pope’s handling of priestly abuse cases. But it was only one element of the response by the church hierarchy -- stretching from the East Bay to the Vatican -- to years of abuse at the hands of Kiesle. There remain questions today about how the case was handled. While the diocese was trying to have the priest defrocked, a pastor in the town of Pinole, north of Oakland, allowed Kiesle to volunteer at his church for seven years in various youth programs. He continued to serve at the church even after the Vatican finally removed him as a priest in 1987. The diocese insisted this week that it had no idea Kiesle was volunteering there until the matter was brought to Bishop John Cummins’ attention in 1988. Cummins then sent the church pastor a letter demanding that Kiesle immediately be removed. The pastor, who is now deceased, defended his decision at the time, telling the diocese there was no evidence Kiesle abused anyone while volunteering.
Kiesle was eventually removed as a church volunteer that year. Seven years later, authorities said he was again abusing. Kiesle grew up in San Jose, and acquaintances said he was drawn to the priesthood in part by his mother, a devout Catholic. When he was a young priest in the early 1970s, people said he resembled a 6-foot-tall teddy bear. He quickly became known for his empathy with children, playing guitar, telling engaging yarns and seeming to connect with young people in a way not many priests did. Across the Oakland Diocese, pastors called on him to help set up programs for children in their congregations.
“Kids followed him,” recalled Msgr. Antonio Valdivia, who worked with Kiesle briefly in Union City. “He was known for his work with the youth . . . energizing the kids, speaking their language, relating and connecting with them.”
continued
Blame Kiesle. Blame the State of California. But do not blame the saintly Pope Benedict.
ReplyDeletePope Benedict will probably be made a saint one day. He has left a wonderful legacy.
Detterling two days after each of you and Dawkins die you will be totally forgotten.
"Detterling two days after each of you and Dawkins die you will be totally forgotten."
ReplyDeleteIt would be more or less impossible to hit off the vacuous nastiness of your personality in fewer words than in that pointless and spiteful remark. What a moral vacuum you are. And do you seriously imagine that I care two straws whether I will be remembered or not after I die?
And spit venom and bile all you wish, but you cannot elide these two FACTS:
[1] Had Ratzinger unfrocked Kiesle in 1985, the abuse of children at St Joseph's would not have continued for a further three years.
[2] Ratzinger would not have apologised in the comprehensive terms that he did, had he not known of his guilt and wished to repent of it.
Or are you saying that this "saintly" man made a bogus apology to defuse a situation which made the Catholic Church look like a congregation of rapists and buggers?
“I can only express to all the victims [1] of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness. I have had great responsibilities [2] in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses [3] and the errors [4] hat occurred in those different places [5] during the time of my mandate."[6]
1 ALL THE VICTIMS, Gene: victimS, plural: you can tell this by the S on the end of the word. All the victims of sexual abuse that occurred during Ratzingers time as Archbishop of Munich [1977- 1982] and later head of the Congregation of the Faith and Pope - that is, 1985 - 2013. The phrase "ALL THE VICTIMS therefore must include the victims of Stephen Kiesle between the years 1985-1988, when Ratzinger failed to unfrock Kiesle. [2] I HAVE HAD GREAT RESPONSIBILITES [see 1 above]: and one of those was to detect, root out and expel priests and others in the Catholic Church whose favourite hobby was buggering small boys and raping little girls. These GREAT RESPONSIBILITIES obviously include those children abused by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him in 1985. [3] THE ABUSES - these must include the abuses committed by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him [unless you can prove differently, Gene?].
[4] THE ERRORS - these must include Ratzinger's failure to unfrock Kiesle in 1985 and probably his failure to alert Fr Thomas Ryan that he was allowing a convicted paedophile rapist to minister to the young people in his church.
[5] THOSE DIFFERENT PLACES - except, of course at St Joseph's Church, Penole, CA, where Stephen Kiesle, still a priest, continued to abuse children during the years 1985-1988 - Ratzinger made it clear that his apology did not include this, didn't he, Gene, and you can prove that, can't you? What's that? oh, you can't? Dear me, and YOU call ME a lying tosser... [5] DURING MY MANDATE: that is, during the years 1985 - 2013.