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Mark Oaten (born 8 March 1964, Watford) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom, and Member of Parliament for the Winchester constituency. Oaten served as the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary (the party's main Home Affairs spokesman), before resigning that position on 21 January, 2006 after a sex scandal involving male prostitutes was uncovered by the News of the World tabloid newspaper.
Before Parliament
Oaten was educated at Watford Comprehensive School and Hatfield Polytechnic. 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 SDP group on Watford District Council. He stood for the Watford seat at the 1992 election and polled 10,231 votes, coming third.
Election to 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.
This decision caused the 1997 Winchester by-election at which Malone fought once again 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).
Oaten's politics
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 Orange Book (2004). Within the party Oaten has been called a moderniser, in the sense that he is keen to emphasise economic liberalism and to prevent the Liberal Democrats being sidelined as a 'party of the left'. However as the party's principal home affairs spokesman, he also championed the rights of asylum seekers and civil liberties, and has claimed to want to reunite all the strands of liberalism, and not elevate one above the others. Thus Oaten's supporters would describe him as being on the libertarian wing of the Liberal Democrats, rather than the 'right' wing.
He also popularised the term 'tough liberalism', which was widely reported as a shift towards more punitive law and order measures and stricter immigration policy. However, this seems to be a mischaracterisation of Oaten's initial meaning, which was to indicate a non-interventionist approach emphasising personal responsibility, which could be characterised as 'cruel to be kind', and to emphasise willingness to stand up to reactionary public opinion on social policy issues.
Liberal Democrat leadership contest 2006
On January 10 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 January 18 he became embroiled in a row about the leaking of an email.
On January 19, Oaten withdrew from the contest, having failed to attract enough support from within the parliamentary party; his sole backers were Lembit Opik MP and Baroness Ludford.
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
This was actually hilarious, he's ruined now!
Shows that sleaze and idiocy when it comes to sexual affairs isn't just confined to David Mellor.
External links
- Mark Oaten MP official site
- 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
- BBC News profile - Mark Oaten profile 21 January, 2006
- Resignation from front bench BBC 21 January, 2006
- Lib Dem MP resigns over "gay" relationship 22 January, 2006
Notes and references
- Liberal Democrats: Who's Who.
- ^ "Ask Aristotle: Mark Oaten." The Guardian.
- Tania Branigan, 2006. "Oaten to pull out of Lib Dem leadership race." The Guardian.