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Tag-Archive for "Mark Oaten"

Oaten on your computer screen Oct 31

Joy of joys: Mark Oaten has found a new medium via which to expose himself to the world. Advance notice, then, that he will be appearing on the show I was on last night, Vox Politix, next Monday on internet “Talk TV” station 18 Doughty Street. Iain Dale will, as always, be inviting questions from the interweb – and if that isn’t tempting fate, I don’t know what is.

Come on, Winchester residents – find him some casework to fill his time.

Suffering Mark Oaten withdrawal symptoms? Aug 03

Of course you are – it’s been almost a week since he popped up on The Ultimate West Wing Challenge.

Fear not – your Oaten appetite can be sated via a podcast. Not his own, thankfully (although I confess some surprise that he and his wife aren’t running a Darbyshire style blogspot confessional) but a British Library panel discussion entitled – surprise, surprise – “Prurience or privilege: are politicians entitled to a private life?

Now don’t all download it at once…

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Hands off May 25

As mentioned earlier, I listened to James Graham on Resonance FM last night. As well as talking politics generally, he was promoting Hands Off Our Future, his new website (and forum) promoting the issue of generational equity. With pensions – erroneously often not considered a young persons’ issue – in the news today, it’s well-timed. With older people much more likely to vote, there is a danger of the country providing more and more benefits to well-off retired people at the expense (literally) of debt-saddled younglings who can’t get on the housing ladder. With plenty of pressure groups speaking for older people, it’s almost a taboo to suggest that – for example – free TV licences for the over-74s are a gratuitous subsidy for many comfortable septagenarians.

Of course, the issues aren’t as straightforward as that and stripping away all non-means-tested benefits for older people isn’t the answer, but there’s an important debate to be had about the legacy – environmental and economic – that future generations will be left with.

The highlight of the radio show for me, incidentally, was James’s conjuring up of a media-hungry Mark Oaten sitting at home working his way through a pile of KitKats in the hope of finding a golden ticket

Mark Jan 21

I didn’t want him to be leader, and I was hoping he wouldn’t remain our shadow home secretary once the new leader was elected, but I wouldn’t wish this story about Mark Oaten on anyone.

While there were always rumours about Charles’s drinking, this has taken every LibDem I spoke to this evening completely by surprise. What Mark did or didn’t do – as long as it was legal – is none of our business and if he wants to remain in public life, this shouldn’t be allowed to prevent him from returning to the front benches in future.

In the mean time, I hope the media respect his wishes and leave his family alone while he tries to sort this out.

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