Hilarious moment on the Wright Stuff with Mark Oaten just now. A man phoned in describing a T Shirt with the slogan "everyone wants a piece of your ass". Matthew Wright told the caller "you'd better speak to Mark Oaten about that". He was actually referring to a previous discussion on mid life crises, but the audience found it particularly amusing. Not sure where Mrs Oaten has got to, as she was billed to appear on the show too.
Oaten seems to be pitching himself as an anti-politician politician. He's also keeps extracting the michael out of the LibDems. Is he trying to become the LibDem equivalent of Michael Portillo? The mind boggles. It seems apparent to me that Oaten is intending to stand down at the next election and wants to carve out a career by tarting himself around the media. Talking of which, I shall be on GMTV again this Sunday - but I digress! I'm just not sure he's got what it takes to do that. In the short term he is an object of curiosity, but whenever he appears I'm afraid people are only interested in one subject - and even if it isn't mentioned, it's in the back of your mind whenever you hear his voice. So if the Gavin Grant strategy is to morph him into a Portillo style political pundit, I doubt whether it will work. Apparently Oaten's next TV project is a documentary on mid life crises. Car crash TV.
11 comments:
Same old story isn't it?
I've long held the belief that to get on in politics you must have a record out, a book being published or currently out on parole.
Proper polityics doesn't belong to the politician anymore, it is to be found in the cynic.
'All politicians are liars'
'Only in it for themselves'
'Say one thing,do another'
Go to jail for being a lying perjured and corrupt thief and you'll be reviewing the papers tonight.
24 digital TV has made more armchair generals than any diminishing membership could ever do.
It's the way it is, I'm afraid.
Fuck up and then say sorry for the next 20 years by being soft with yourself and hard on those that remain responsible and open to account and therefore accountable.
I've never put a foot wrong in 25 years but I might as well be a murderer as far as politics goes.
Tories hate me as well.
Must invest in glass coffee table or commit a crime.
Makes sense politically and financially.
Gary
It's worse than that. He's trying to reinvent himself as the bastard son of Portillo and Neil Hamilton.
Expect him to be modelling for a dodgy erotica exhibition any day now.
Oaten's condition is a form of public self abuse as a form of penance/redemption following which he hopes his behaviour will be forgiven. Once commenced, this progamme continues and is encouraged by the continuing public abuse heaped upon him. As The Vicar of Albion would say' Remember him in your prayers'.
Talking of abuse Private Eye has heaped some abuse on the sainted Mary for attacking you.
Oaten was noticeably unshaven here. Presumably a media friendly Miami Vice look.
And they say politis is show biz for ugly people. No just for thinking people.
I wondered if you might do a separate post on this Iain, but I was astonished to read this comment by Portillo in his (pisspoor) Sunday Times column this weekend.
"The Bromley result will strengthen the hand of those who believe local parties should be free to opt out of Cameron’s modernising programme where it does not suit. That argument is made in respect of Scotland, Wales, northern England, the shires and suburban London, which would make the capital’s metropolitan heart the only go area left for modernisers. Cameron cannot accept that and will lose heavily if he does. More bloodshed within the party lies ahead. Let us hope so, anyway."
I may be misinterpreting him, but I read this as Portillo expressing the hope, not merely the opinion, that the Tory Party will tear itself apart.
Even by his standards, this surely ranks as an appalling piece of disloyalty, especially given that Portillo claims to have virtually invented the modernising agenda that Cameron is now attempting to pursue and which Portillo "hopes" will cause further "bloodshed."
As for Mark Oaten, he is fast becoming the Leah Darbyshire of British politics. He ought to have realised long ago that he was making a complete tit of himself and quietly departed the stage, as Jonathan Calder and myself among other suggested. But on he goes, digging himself deeper and deeper into a whole every time he opens his mouth.
Leah Darbyshire is also back and posting more vitriol on Forceful and Moderate, btw.
It’s no secret that Mark was never exactly a popular figure in the Lib Dems, but there was nonetheless some sympathy (tempered with extreme irritation) following his indiscretions. If he’s going to act like a complete tit for the next three years though, and serve to do nothing but embarrass the party (more than he did when he was a spokesman for us) I think you will find people being increasingly less forgiving of him. And after we’d got rid of Marsden… oh well.
Slightly off topic I don't much care for the oaten coloured banner on your site this morning.
Dynamite,
Oaten was quite good as HO spokesperson though, frankly his successor has shown himself to be lightweight and opportunistic (e.g post forest gate and Frank field comments) need to get your man Heath in that position as he is effective - just needs a shave.
I'm sure Mark Oaten isn't an unredeemably bad person, but I do think his and his wife's efforts to rehabilitate his reputation are pretty suspect.
Do you not remember the item in Private Eye a couple of weeks after Mr Oaten's fall from grace?
What the newspaper that published details of his "rent-boy romps" couldn't bring itself to say was that one of the services Mark Oaten paid for was the privilege of being able to eat (how do I put this delicately?) the food the other gentleman had eaten the previous day.
Now there's nothing wrong with people doing that sort of thing in private, but when a politician does a cheesy David Mellor-type "the family are right behind me" routine after he has been caught paying a bloke to do THAT!!!
Well, call me old fashioned, but I don't think you can take Mr Oaten or Mrs Oaten at all seriously any more.
P.S. If you feel this goes too far to put on your blog I will quite understand. But the thing is, Mark Oaten is trying to come across as wholesome. And if Private Eye's story was true, he is not very fragrant at all.
Have you seen Daily Politics buffing up Oaten on a really trivial item about politicians getting fit? It's an absolute waste of time that could otherwise be spent skewering politicos. The worst part is seeing Oaten all sweaty and with a day's growth of beard. If the intention is to 'rehabilitate' him it's backfiring.
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