Mark Oaten

Mark Oaten (born 8 March 1964) is a British former politician who was a senior member of the Liberal Democrat Party until his resignation in disgrace. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Winchester from 1997 to 2010.

Born in Watford, Hertfordshire, Oaten became a councillor in local government, joining the centre-left Social Democratic Party, which merged with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats in 1988. He became the party's Home Affairs spokesperson in 2003. He stood for the position of Leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2006, but withdrew from the contest when he was hit by a series of scandals which also led to his resignation as Home Affairs spokesperson. He did not run for re-election to the House of Commons at the 2010 general election.

Following his retirement from active politics, Oaten published two books, before becoming executive of the International Fur Trade Federation in 2011, resulting in condemnation from animal welfare groups.

Early life

Oaten was educated at Queens' School, Bushey, and Hatfield Polytechnic.^[1][2]

Before entering Parliament, Oaten had been a councillor and was employed as a lobbyist by various Westminster public affairs companies. He was leader of the Social Democratic Party group on Watford Borough Council. He stood for the Watford seat at the 1992 general election and polled 10,231 votes, coming third.^[3]

Member of Parliament

He won the Winchester seat in the 1997 election with a majority of 2, but his election was later declared void by the Election Court. The defeated Conservative former MP Gerry Malone successfully challenged the election on the basis of an established precedent which voided the result where it had been affected by a decision not to count ballot papers which had not been properly stamped.^[3]

This decision caused the 1997 Winchester by-election at which Malone fought once again to try to capture the seat. However, many felt that Malone had behaved as a 'poor loser' and Oaten won with a majority of 21,556, gaining 68% of the vote. He held the seat in the 2001 election, with a majority of 9,634 (with a 54.6% share of the vote), and again in 2005, although his majority dropped to 7,473 (a 50.6% share of the vote).

Liberal Democrat leadership contest 2006

On 10 January 2006, Oaten declared that he would be a candidate in the leadership election to replace Charles Kennedy, standing on an agenda of making liberalism relevant to the twenty first century. He was widely rumoured to be Kennedy's favoured successor, but his campaign failed to gain momentum. On 18 January he became embroiled in a row about the leaking of an email.^[4]

On 19 January, Oaten withdrew from the contest, having failed to attract enough support from within the parliamentary party; his sole backers were Lembit Öpik MP and Sarah Ludford, Baroness Ludford, a peer and MEP.

He concluded his withdrawal statement with the words "Next week I'll be giving some thought to where I go politically and giving my thoughts on the future of the Party."

Scandal and resignation

On 21 January 2006, Oaten resigned from the Liberal Democrat front bench^[5] when it was revealed by the News of the World that he had hired a 23-year-old male prostitute between the summer of 2004 and February 2005. The newspaper also alleged that Oaten had engaged in 'three-in-a-bed' sex sessions with two male prostitutes.^[6] Further allegations surfaced in the media over the following days, including an accusation that he had asked one of the prostitutes to engage in an act of coprophilia.^[7][8][9]

Oaten gave an explanation for his actions in an essay in The Sunday Times^[10] in which he claimed a "mid-life crisis" was partly responsible for his actions. This was partially contradicted by a 2009 Press Gazette interview Oaten gave, in which he said "Journalists... had my story for three years I think, but hung on to it and never did anything with it. They could have made that public interest argument at any point in the three years. I had always been a Member of Parliament, but they waited until it could sell most newspapers, at the point at which I became well-known and at my most famous."^[11]

Oaten announced that he would be standing down from Parliament at the 2010 general election.^[12] The members of his Winchester constituency party selected Martin Tod to replace Oaten as the Liberal Democrat candidate,^[13] but Tod was defeated at the general election by the Conservative candidate Steve Brine.

Retirement

In late 2009 the Oaten family were looking to sell their house in Bramdean and move to Alresford in order to be closer to the facilities and transport network offered by the larger town.^[14] After his retirement from frontline politics, Oaten released two books, one on the history of coalition governments,^[15] and the other a memoir entitled Screwing Up: How One MP Survived Politics, Scandal and Turning 40.^[16]

Political leaning

Oaten was a member of the Advisory Board of the Liberal Future think tank until it was wound up in 2005, and one of the contributors to the The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism in 2004—although he attracted anger from the book's co-authors at its launch event at the Lib Dem Conference in spring 2004 when he refused to answer questions about his own chapter, stating that it had actually been written by his research assistant, and that he had not even read it.^[17] Within the party, Oaten has been called a moderniser in the sense that he was keen to emphasise economic liberalism and to prevent the Liberal Democrats being sidelined as a 'party of the left'. As the party's principal home affairs spokesman, he also championed the rights of asylum seekers and civil liberties, condemned calls by then Conservative frontbencher David Davis for the reintroduction of capital punishment and has claimed to want to reunite all the strands of liberalism, and not elevate one above the others.^{[citation needed]}

Tower Block of Commons

In February 2010 Channel 4 broadcast a four-part series called Tower Block of Commons in which four MPs lived with council tenants on different estates in England.

Taking part alongside Oaten were Tim Loughton, Austin Mitchell and Nadine Dorries, who replaced Iain Duncan Smith who left the programme early after his wife was diagnosed with cancer.^[18]

Oaten had by far the most extreme reaction of the participating MPs to the council estate. On arrival, he attempted to blend in by exchanging his business suit for a tracksuit, but word rapidly spread around the estate of his identity, and on the first day he found himself being goaded by youths about his having hired a rent boy. He promptly collapsed in tears, face down on the grass, while the 43-year-old single mother he was staying with looked on, remarking "One day he’s been in here and he’s like that. Look at him. I’ve been here ten years and he can’t take it. I’ve got his stuff, his wallet. If I didn’t, he’d be off. I’m telling you he’d be on that train and straight home. My God. What is he gonna be like at the end of the week? He’s gonna want a noose."^[19]

International Fur Trade Federation

In 2011 Oaten accepted a position as executive of the International Fur Trade Federation. Oaten was criticised for accepting the position by animal welfare groups, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and Winchester Animal Concern.^[20] Whilst an MP, Oaten was critical of any plans to introduce legislation to outlaw fox hunting, and supported a 'middle way' approach to the issue, that would allow hunting to remain legal. In 2004 Oaten voted against the ban on fox hunting.^[21]

Notes and references

Publications

• Coalition: The Politics and Personalities of Coalition Government from 1850, Harriman House Publishing, 2007
• Screwing Up: How One MP Survived Politics, Scandal and Turning 40, Biteback Publishing Ltd, 2009

External links

• Mark Oaten MP profile at the site of Liberal Democrats
• Winchester Liberal Democrats
• ePolitix.com - Mark Oaten MP
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Mark Oaten MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Mark Oaten MP
• The Public Whip - Mark Oaten voting record