Fantastic Mr Field

There can be nothing more irritating for the nascent blogger than the arrival of a worm bot (or maybe bot worm) on the laptop. A combined treatment of Ivomec and ignorance has failed to defeat the intruder, and I'm off to see Uncle Darren at Blues Digital in Newtown tomorrow morning. A techno-enema from a professional computer doctor is required.

In the meantime, I have negotiated the release of the home PC from long-term captivity by my in-house teenager (who is wandering around the house singing "Life on Mars", and waving a pack of Oreos round like a light sabre, and, therefore hasn't noticed).

That's because I wanted to give a verbal round of applause to PM Cameron for choosing Frank Field to be the country's new poverty czar.

"Czar" and "poverty" usually end up in the same sentence in less than wholesome ways, but this has to be one of the most positive and inspired ideas politics has seen in a long time. Anyone who still thinks Cameron is the heir to Blair can see the mistake exposed here in this single appointment.

Field was famously charged with "thinking the unthinkable" as Blair's Minister for Welfare Reform, but - rather like Mo Mowlam - came up with something that dimmed the Bambi glow (pinning his demise entirely on Brown and Harman is just a bit too convenient.) The result was an unacceptable reshuffle role; a kind of green bench constructive dismissal. He has been rattling New Labour cages ever since.

Looks like Cameron is made of braver stuff. Field is already sympathetic to the aims and findings of the Centre for Social Justice, and so should find an easy ally in Duncan Smith at the DWP. We're going to see some pretty stern frowns from that quarter in coming months, so it'll be interesting to see how the Lib Dem elements of the new government cope with forthcoming proposals.

After all, Clegg seems to be saying that the Big Society (or "patronising nonsense" as he called it before the election) was basically what he was talking about all along, just speaking from a different lexicon. Removing entrenched over-reliance on the state is part of the Big Society philosophy; a differently balanced Social Contract, if you like. If IDS (and Field) are serious about making it difficult for people to view a life on benefits as a career choice, replacing a sense of entitlement with sense of responsibility is bound to mean stick as well as carrot. Already the Lib Dems are muttering elsewhere about human rights. Perhaps we had better check now to see if Clegg's lexicon includes the words "Yes, but..."

Another cage rattler seems to be surfing the zeitgeist, this time in Powys. Not content with being the County Council's newest Board member, Cllr Price is also Llandrindod's new town mayor. Congratulations Gary. Man is born free but everywhere he is chains....