reviews

In that respect the book has young women as any feminist further value as a story to be tract. commended to any young person Memoirs are, by their very who is considering becoming nature, backward looking, involved in politics; but who is particularly when written by a deterred by modern-day cyni- woman in her eightieth year. cism about the parliamentary Yet, as the final chapters of the and political process. Here is a book show, here is a politician story of someone who came from deeply concerned about nuclear a comfortable middle-class back- proliferation and using her ground which provided her with amazing network of contacts to the education and the oppor- influence disarmament policy tunity to choose almost any on both sides of the Atlantic, or profession she wanted. Not only using her experience and demo- that, she could, more than once, cratic credentials to promote have quit the political arena and good governance in the Ukraine settled for a comfortable aca- and Latin America. With no demic berth on either side of the large party or high office to Atlantic. Instead, she chose to underpin her ventures, she is stay with the rough and tumble received at the highest level of party and parliamentary poli- in Africa, in the Middle East, tics. The book is an affirmation China and India, as well as in of both the parliamentary and any capital in Europe. She is still the democratic process by some- someone influencing policy and one who has walked the walk policy-makers in many parts of and got the scars to show for it. the world. What is more, she has done so Shirley’s mother, Vera Brit- not by delivering great thoughts tain wrote one of the greatest from Olympian heights, but by books to come out of the First getting down in the trenches World War: Testament of Youth. with the poor bloody infantry. It was a unique book written Many a time I have asked Shirley in unique circumstances. Her of public funds rather than their her plans for the weekend after daughter, however, has written private lives. a very full week in the Lords, a testament of hope by someone Screwing Up is an unusual only to be told that she was off with eyes still firmly fixed on the political memoir. Oaten’s prose is to speak at a party event in some possibilities of tomorrow. written in a sympathetic if some- location far from the Westmin- what dull way, and he comes ster village. Her book reveals Lord Tom McNally is Minister of across as ordinary and genuinely the difficulties, and sometimes State at the Ministry of Justice and likeable. The tone is self-depre- the pain, of a woman trying to Deputy Leader of the House of cating, and he reserves bad words make her way in politics and Lords. MP for Stockport 1979–83, he only for the party activists typi- parliament, and as such it should was one of the founders of the Social fied by the ‘Liberator collective’ provide as inspirational a read for Democratic Party. who were opposed to his right- wing leanings and for bloggers who indulged in innuendo about what Oaten may have got up to in his private life. The structure of Screwing Up The end of the affair is also different to many politi- cal memoirs. Chapters focus on Mark Oaten, Screwing Up (Biteback, 2009) MPs’ foreign trips and, presum- Reviewed by Tom Kiehl ably due to the mood of the time when the book was published, the intricacies of parliamentary ublished on the eve of the the party’s last major spectacle expenses. The book seems to Liberal Democrats’ 2009 ahead of the 2010 general elec- assume its readership has only a PAutumn Federal Confer- tion. However, coming as it does casual knowledge of the work ence, Screwing Up, the political in the aftermath of the parlia- of an MP and therefore gets memoirs of the former leader- mentary expenses scandal that bogged down with these weaker ship candidate Mark Oaten, dominated British politics for chapters. who resigned from the party’s much of 2009, Screwing Up was There is, unfortunately, little frontbench in January 2006 fol- suitably timed for Oaten, who in Screwing Up for either politi- lowing tabloid revelations of an did not seek re-election, to reha- cal anoraks or scholars of recent affair with a rent boy, received bilitate himself at a period when Liberal Democrat history to get criticism from some activists public contempt for politicians is their teeth into. The chapter on for reopening a wound during reserved for the extravagant use working with

Journal of Liberal History 68 Autumn 2010 45 reviews does not contain any revelations Oaten was seem by some as a On reading Screwing Up, one that cannot be found elsewhere. credible future party leader at never really understands why The chapter on Mark Oaten’s the time he held this brief. Oaten joined a political party in initial two-vote election to When the revelations about the first place, let alone why he parliament in , and Oaten’s affair became public, the eventually sought elected and the eventual legal challenge and question most people asked was high office for that party. If he by-election victory, is adequate why someone with such a big was as unforthcoming with his but could have been developed skeleton in their closet would motivations to his parliamentary further to explain why the tur- seek the leadership of a politi- colleagues as he is to readers of bulence surrounding his tak- cal party. But the impression his book, then this may further ing his seat in parliament could Screwing Up gives is of Oaten, explain why he failed to get the perhaps account for the detached against his better judgment, necessary support. displacement, evident in later being pushed into running for The one ideological theme chapters, that he felt whilst in leader, largely by Charles Ken- that is consistent throughout Westminster. nedy’s supporters, who wanted Mark Oaten’s political career is The most successful and inter- an MP they perceived as loyal to his preference for working with esting chapters in Screwing Up succeed. the Conservative Party. Oaten concern Mark Oaten’s period In the wake of the scandal, is honest that, whilst an MP, he as the party’s Home Affairs it has been easy to forget that at times flirted with the idea of spokesperson and his doomed Oaten failed to make the ballot joining the Conservative Party. bid to replace Charles Kennedy paper for the leadership contest Oaten’s tendency to work with as the party leader. Mark writes not because of his affair but due Conservatives is also tellingly enthusiastically about his time to a lack of support amongst catalogued in Screwing Up in an covering the Home Affairs brief. his fellow MPs. When Oaten incident he recounts from the Whether one supported Oaten’s announced his candidacy, to very beginning of his political approach to the portfolio or not, many outsiders he presented career while a councillor in Wat- this chapter makes one realise a fresh contrast to the only ford in the 1980s. Oaten uses the that, in recent years, very few other declared candidate, Ming concluding chapter of this book Liberal Democrat spokespeople Campbell, and had a similar PR to reiterate arguments made in have had the same sense of how background and media-friendly his other published work, Coali- they want to develop their brief image to David Cameron, who tion, that the Liberal Democrats as Mark Oaten at Home Affairs had won the Conservative Party should consider working with did. In the context of this chap- leadership only a month previ- the Conservatives if the 2010 ter, it makes perfect sense why ously. However, such credentials general election results in a hung did not translate into support parliament. from parliamentary colleagues As the title implies, Screwing who, instead, either flocked to Up concentrates heavily on the Campbell or supported alterna- mental state of Mark Oaten and tive and then as yet undeclared how the scandal that brought candidates. There was clearly about the end of his political something wrong with Mark career was a consequence of the Oaten’s relationship with other Westminster lifestyle that he led. Liberal Democrat MPs, and Readers wanting a gratuitous Screwing Up would have ben- insight into the scandal itself will efited from more insight from be disappointed, as the actual Oaten about this. details of his affair are skirted It is evident that Oaten felt over. However, the chapters that intellectually inferior to other concern the fallout of the affair MPs, and he makes it clear in becoming public knowledge, and Screwing Up that he was more how Oaten survived that ordeal, at ease on a radio or television are at times compelling. interview than in a debate in One would have to be a very the House of Commons. This hard-hearted person indeed to inferiority complex may explain not feel the slightest bit of sym- in part why the state school and pathy towards Oaten when, in polytechnic-educated Oaten the final paragraph ofScrewing was never able to persuade the Up, he recognises that, in spite predominantly public school of his many perceived achieve- and Oxbridge-educated MPs ments as an MP, he will always who contributed to or were be remembered by the scandal sympathetic towards The Orange that brought his career to a sud- Book to back him, although on den end. an ideological basis they would have been Oaten’s natural Tom Kiehl is the Deputy Editor of supporters. the Journal of Liberal History.

46 Journal of Liberal History 68 Autumn 2010