TWO prominent leftwingers, former cabinet ministers Clare Short and Tony Benn, have spoken out in support of David Cameron’s Conservatives.

Short, international development secretary for six years until 2003, last week addressed a private meeting of Tory frontbenchers giving advice on overseas aid policy.

She said: “The Conservatives have committed to keeping up the budget and keeping up the commitment on poverty and keeping a separate department, so I am pleased about that.”

Meanwhile Benn, the veteran radical campaigner, confessed that that his views on civil liberties and Europe were closer to the Conservatives than Labour.

In an interview with The Sunday Times he warned it was likely that some Labour MPs would defect to the Tories in the event of a hung parliament or a Tory victory.

The comments by two of

the biggest names on the left are a sign of the success of Cameron’s “big tent” strategy of reaching out to people who would not traditionally support the Conservatives.

Short quit the cabinet over the Iraq war and in 2006 resigned the Labour whip over Tony Blair’s “deceit”.

She delivered a presentation last week at a seminar hosted by Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, advising the Tories on how best to implement policies.

Short said: “They asked

me to come and, because I believe Britain should do its development efforts well, I went and gave them an hour on how to run the department well.” It is understood that she has given informal advice to Tory shadow ministers on several occasions.

Also speaking at the event was Bob Geldof, the global poverty campaigner, who had previously been closely linked with the Labour government.

As president of the Stop the War Coalition, Benn will appear at today’s anti-war Eloquent Protest IV event at the Duke of York’s theatre, London. It will be held in aid

of the Mark Wright Project to help injured soldiers. Wright,

a 27-year-old George Cross winner, was killed in Afghanistan in 2006. His parents set up the charity.

“There are issues I find myself in agreement with some of the Tories on, particularly on civil liberties,” said Benn. “All this security state stuff is very, very worrying. Libertarians like David Davis, a right-wing Conservative, resigned over the government’s 42-day detention law \ and I went to speak for him.” He said he also agreed with the Conservatives over the Lisbon treaty.

Benn added: “Some of the new Labour people might be tempted to support Cameron as the best way of having influence within the new power structure if there was a hung parliament. Some new Labour people might be sympathetic to some of the things Cameron did.”

Benn, 84, has been recuperating after a prostate operation went wrong in August. “As I grow older I

have reached the conclusion that issues unite people, whereas ideologies divide them,” he said.

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