Oaten - a few words

3.59.21pm GMT Mon 23rd Jan 2006

Mark Oaten

Well I could not let the whole Oaten thing go without comment and after some repairing of the website - many thanks to Ryan Cullen and www.libdemblogs.co.uk for the assistance! I do not want to say too much but thought I should say something.

I was with a group of Liberal Democrats in Wales (after the very successful Moving Forward Day) when the news of Mark Oaten's 'affair' with a 'rent-boy' started to come through by text message - I received the first and just didn't believe it! When the second text came through to me other people started to get them too - I think Sky News broke the story. I was truly shocked by the revelations, I suspect sales of the News of the World amongst Liberal Democrats reached a record high on Sunday!

Two initial thoughts were is it an 'affair' if you are paying and is it a 'rent boy' if he was 23. I suspect the News of the World have had this for a while and were just waiting to use it, Mark's withdrawal from the race took the choice of timing away from them (I do not think the story and withdrawal were connected).

More seriously though, I feel for Mark's family especially his children but one has to question not why Mark did this - I do not really care why, but why did he stand knowing that this was in his past and he must have known it would come out at some point - especially if you believe the News of the World story that the rent boy knew who Mark was!