A wry and candid memoir: Lord Brady reviews 'The End of an Era'
2018: Then-FCO minister Mark Field | Image by: Tommy London / Alamy Stock Photo
4 min read
Mark Field’s thoughtful analysis is delivered with a side order of waspish insight
Unsurprisingly, much of the media coverage about The End of an Era cast back over 20 years to Mark Field’s affair with Liz Truss, even though this relationship had already been made very painfully public at the time – especially as she fought an attempt by the “Turnip Taliban” to deselect her as a parliamentary candidate in rural Norfolk. Field writes objectively about the strengths and weaknesses of the woman who went on to serve for 49 days as prime minister. “In fairness, over the next few years, with characteristic energy… she identified the urgent priority for fast-track planning reform, increased housing density and affordable childcare.” The counterpoint is Field’s comment that this was, “All a far cry from her later descent into the world of faintly paranoid conspiracy theories and accusations of being thwarted by the deep state.”
He does allow himself the wry reflection that lending her a copy of “the story of reckless greed, excessive ambition and impetuous risk-taking on the Wall Street trading floor”, Liar’s Poker, “must also have been an inspiration of sorts to Liz, though we all had to wait almost two decades to understand precisely what that inspiration was”.
We are treated to some perceptive commentary on his contemporaries
Field writes just as candidly about the hopes, fears and frustrations that accompanied his journey from grammar school to Oxford, through entrepreneurial success and the decision to step away from a career with a City law firm to pursue riskier ventures. A lucky loss in a tricky seat in 1997 was followed by his selection as candidate for the seat of Cities of London and Westminster, and his entry to the Commons in 2001. Many of us have similar stories of selection by narrow margins – in his case, just three votes out of more than 400 decided it.
In a very readable memoir, we are treated to some perceptive commentary on his contemporaries and also some astute assessment of the problems and challenges that were variously missed, ignored or created by governments of all stripes in recent decades. These include the folly of the private finance initiative (without any identifiable transfer of risk); excessive public spending (whilst shrinking the tax base, by taking too many people out of paying tax at all); the failure to address the problem of social care; the lack of wisdom in keeping interest rates too low for too long; the madness of repeated Covid lockdowns; and the damage done by pushing far too many young people into higher education to study the wrong things, funded by ‘loans’ many of which will never be repaid.
All this thoughtful analysis is made more palatable by side orders of waspish insight: “Cameron was elected leader as a Blair tribute act just as the British public was falling out of love with the Blair project.” As minister of state at the Foreign Office, he also had a ringside seat to watch the rivalry between Rory Stewart and Boris Johnson: “This masks the uncomfortable truth that the two men have more in common than Rory cares to admit: highly competitive, egotistical, hugely self-confident and with an over-developed sense of their own political destiny – they both appeared to believe in their own innate right to lead.”
Personally I agree with much of what Mark Field has to say (although we were on opposite sides in the Brexit debate), but I suspect that most readers will be left regretting that he ended up despairing of politics: Parliament is the poorer without him.
Lord Brady of Altrincham is a Conservative peer
The End of an Era: The Decline and Fall of the Tory Party
By: Mark Field
Publisher: Biteback
