Frank Field, Cool Earth Co-Founder and Politician: A Memoir

Frank Field is Cool Earth’s co-founder and one of the most influential politicians of his generation.

This week his memoirs titled Politics, Poverty and Belief are published which will be essential reading on social justice, tackling poverty and decency in politics.

As well as founding Cool Earth, Frank’s ideas have inspired our people-first approach. Three Frank-isms in particular underpin what we do:

• Work with the grain of human nature. People care about their own future but they care even more about their children’s. Working with a village’s commitment to their families can achieve great things.
• Make room for a devil’s advocate. Despite getting a very generous allocation of intelligence, Frank insists every assumption, every idea and every plan be pressure tested. He is as independent minded as he is brave but, just as Frank never accepts the orthodoxy, he’ll never short change an opposing view.
• No one understands the labyrinth complexities of welfare states better than Frank. As he says, the best antidote to poverty and its innumerable consequences, from wasted potential to rainforest destruction, is money.

Frank is terminally ill with cancer and we will soon have to cope without him. The fact he has ignored dire prognoses to complete his memoir is a cause for celebration. So too is the humour, wisdom and compassion that Frank brings to everything, including Cool Earth.