The Rundown Podcast: Mark Field On The End Of The Tory Era

3 min read04 April

On this week's episode of The Rundown – A conversation with Mark Field, the former Conservative MP, minister, and author, after the release last week of his memoir from his time in Parliament: The End Of An Era.

The book charts his time in politics, from his political awakening just before his eleventh birthday, through to his time in office as the member for the Cities of London and Westminster before his return to the private sector in 2019, and his reflections five years on from stepping down from the Commons.

His time as an MP neatly maps on to the rise and fall of the 21st century Tory party, having entered parliament in 2001 after a second landslide defeat in a row to Tony Blair's Labour, through the modernisation period under David Cameron and its return to power, then the collapse into chaos after the EU referendum, leading ultimately to its record defeat last year.

Field spoke to The Rundown the morning after his book launch about what his party got right as well as wrong in its 14 years in office, how the Conservatives can recover once more under Kemi Badenoch, and the strategy to take in facing down the threat from Reform one on hand, and the Liberal Democrats on the other.

He also offers his reflections on the fallout from discussing his much-publicised affair with Liz Truss, and how the incident at the Mansion House Dinner in 2019 — that led to the premature end of his ministerial career — still affects him now.

"Fundamentally, what we face is the brand has been very badly damaged by all that has happened, particularly the shenanigans with five different prime ministers, all of this drama which normally happens when a party is in opposition was happening when we were in government," Field explained.

"And, obviously, the track record of the government, particularly economically and in terms of cost of living, is fairly lamentable."

He was pessimistic about his party's chances of returning to power at the next general election, telling the podcast: "It's very difficult to see how the Conservatives can recover from this position in the terms of one parliament."

On the focus of attention for the book being on the handful of pages devoted to the affair with Liz Truss that cost him his first marriage, he was sanguine.

"I'm under no illusions that much as I might berate the idea of the press looking at triviality, which I do in the book, when it came to serialising the book I was well aware what was likely to grab the attention," Field said.

"I like to think I dealt with that whole thing in a very dignified and respectful way. And really, the whole emphasis on it actually is essentially, this was a person who I knew from a very young age, before she was even an MP, worked closely with her, understood her modus operandi.

"And the obvious question that has been asked many times to me in the last three years, you know, did you think she was going to become the prime minister?"

He added: "You look at her personality traits, and as I say in the book, it didn't surprise me that it all unraveled as quickly as it did, maybe even more quickly than I than I might have predicted at the time."

The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot