Would Mark Oaten have been better off
taking the lead from Charles Kennedy
and just keeping quiet?
Photograph: Matthew Fearn/PATelevision producers have twice treated its poor suffering viewers this week to the sight of disturbing mental distress on air, involving two men parading their obvious unhappiness in the midst of squirm-inducing self-destruction. While Channel 4's Big Brother, in the case of Glaswegian Shahbaz Choudhary, did it in the name of entertainment, BBC 2's Newsnight, which showed an extraordinary authored film by Mark Oaten last night, was perhaps hoping to illuminate its audience to the extreme psychological pressures suffered by some at the top of British politics.
While gripping TV, the film - in which the former Liberal Democrat leadership contender confessed to pressing the self-destruct button in scandal rather than taking the braver decision to quit - left so many unanswered questions that the report really should have been followed up by a Paxman interview with the man afterwards. Mr Oaten, whether in denial or not regarding his sexuality as some columnists have argued, claimed that frontline politics is like a drug addiction in which "the politician doesn't know when to stop, they can't get off".
Sadly Mr Oaten, who looked like a man still in the grip of his addiction if not showing actual signs of post-traumatic stress, didn't explain whether this film was part of a rehabilitation process and what he might hope to achieve by remaining in what he called the madhouse of Westminster. He told viewers that he was happier than he'd felt in ages now that the gruelling 24/7 pressure had been lifted from him. But, as the former Bethnal Green MP Oona King sympathetically pointed out to him "you're still here!". A backbencher's job, while not as exhausting as that of a frontbencher, who will be called on to do frequent media interviews and speeches, is not a walk in the park. Many MPs regularly put in 60-70 hour weeks and the disruption this causes to their domestic life as Ms King pointed out can be considerable.
Mr Oaten, whenever I've met or interviewed him, is a charming and engaging man with many talents that could and maybe should be now better employed outside parliament. To judge from the views of some Lib Dems activists, his attempts at rehabilitation have so far been viewed as misconceived and mistimed. Oprah-style confessionals on TV and in the papers only a few months after his exposure in the tabloids have appeared rushed and contrast sharply with the silence from his former boss, Charles Kennedy, another man whose strategies for coping with the intensity of high-profile politics also proved personally disastrous.
If Mr Oaten really believes he can carry on he must hope that the voters of Winchester and his colleagues at Westminster display some of the tolerance the British like to pride themselves on.
