Alan Milburn should join us

Reading the latest volumes of Tony Benn's Diaries, I was struck by suggestion from Benn that the Labour MP and former cabinet minister Alan Milburn should join the Conservative Party. In his entry for Saturday January 15 2005 Benn wrote:

"Alan Milburn was on at the Fabian Society Conference. I find the man absolutely impossible to watch, but he said New Labour has got to reform and reform and reform all the time, more New Labour; it will be very controversial but it's got to be done. It's just a programme for the Tory Party including the privatization of Housing Association houses. Milburn ought to join the Tory Party. He'd be a wonderful leader for them."

In that speech Milburn had said:

"A home is the biggest asset most people will ever own: given a choice, most people would choose to buy, not rent."

He added that Housing Association tenants should be given the right to buy and that the Labour Party's "failure to respond to council tenants' aspirations to own their homes" in the 1970s "had led voters to turn their backs."

I was reminded of this by a recent article by Milburn in The Sunday Times: "With both David Cameron and Nick Clegg inching towards a smaller state Gordon Brown could find himself, by default, defending a big
state," said Milburn.  Much of the article suggests Milburn doesn't think Cameron is going far enough in plans to shrink the state. Milburn suggests cutting the size of the civil service by a quarter and giving parents and patients their own budgets to pay for private education and health.

Benn is right. Milburn should defect.