Mark Oaten: Part II - The Aftermath

Mark Oaten's "Episode" raises an interesting thought for the Conservative Party.

He was the man the Tory Party had the most to fear from - he won the solid Tory seat of Winchester from Gerry Malone back in '97 and could have probably done the same in larger quantities for Lib Dems around the country at the next election.

The rest of the bunch are pretty unappealing - Huhne has only sat in parliament for a matter of months and now he wants to lead a national party! I know there are Cameron parallels there but not such bravado on that scale. Ming - too old, dull and reliable. A good man but a caretaker only. Simon Hughes - not terribly inspiring is he?

Oaten was different (no, not like that!) - he wasn't threatening to alot of Tory voters and alot of his ideas (tough liberalism, etc.) appealed to many disaffected Tories. He could have quite easily gained alot of centrist New Labour voters that wouldn't vote for a Labour party under Gordon Brown too, putting the party in a remarkably strong position.

As it is now, the Lib Dems can only lurch to the left and will have to compete with Labour for a limited pool of voters - leaving the door wide open for Cameron and the Tory party to move back to the centre ground at the next election.

Thanks to Guido for the photo.