Trouble at t’Mill.
It was only last month that the Parish council at Uppermill was debating whether they needed to spend £500,000 on updating the Civic Hall. The consensus of popular opinion was that there were now’t wrong with Civic Hall as it was, and Councillors should produce a business plan if they thought it was ever going to get more use than it currently did. Why – hadn’t t’Parish council had only just finished paying for the ‘monstrous carbuncle’ they had bolted onto the front of the building, in a fit of expansion, 25 years ago?
You will be hearing a lot about Uppermill Civic Hall over the next few weeks – and watching the cream of London’s lawyers come and go through its algae covered portals. Mr Justice Griffiths Williams recently spent an entire afternoon sitting in the Royal Courts of Justice in London listening to arguments from leading barristers concerning the precise place that the first election court to consider corruption allegations against a sitting MP for 100 years should convene.
Thus it is that this morning, two High Court Justices, accompanied by a registrar from the Supreme Court and a shorthand writer from the House of Commons will journey forth with all the pageantry that an Inter-City train can provide, and take up residence in Saddleworth to decide whether the election result, which returned Labour MP Phil Woolas to the seat for Oldham East and Saddleworth, should be allowed to stand.
Oldham East and Saddleworth has been the scene of many a bitterly fought election. 15 years ago Peter Mandelson was drafted in to mange an earlier challenge for the seat by then youthful Blairite Phil Woolas – Woolas came second then. Mandelson admitted in his recent autobiography that he had gone ‘on the attack’ in order to make a Lib-Dem vote ‘as distasteful as possibly’.
“After the campaign was over, not only our opponents but some in Labour would denounce our ‘negative’ tactics in highlighting Lib Dem front-runner Chris Davies’ support for higher taxes and a Royal Commission to liberalise drugs laws. For tactical reasons, I felt we had had little choice.”
The Labour-supporting Daily Mirror distributed a special free edition in the constituency, with some trenchantly pro-Woolas material in it. This was later found to have broken election law, although prosecutors decided pursuing the case was not in ‘the public interest’. Similar tactics were employed in the recent election –some of which disgusted even Labour activists, well aware of the racial tensions in the area.
The narrow majority which returned Woolas – a mere 103 votes – is now being disputed by the Liberal-Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins under the rarely used section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983). Statement of petition HERE.
Mr Watkins was particularly upset by two features of Labour’s leaflet campaign, which ‘contained numerous misleading and erroneous claims regarding my personal character and reputation, and that of my campaign’ – specifically that he tried to woo Muslim extremists and claims regarding the financing of his bid for office. Election leaflets can be seen HERE.
However, this is no defamation case where the onus would be on Mr Woolas to prove the truth of his statements. Quite the reverse.
Elwyn Watkins must convince the court of three things.
First that the allegations made by Woolas were statements. Gavin Millar QC (entirely coincidentally, Alastair Campbell’s brother-in-law) is likely to argue that they were mere questions or suggestions.
Second, Mr Watkins must prove the statements questioned his personal character rather than just his political views.
Third, that the statements questioning his personal character were false.
Even then, he must show that Phil Woolas had no reasonable grounds to believe that such statements were true.
The stakes are high – if Elwyn Watkins is successful, not only will there be a by-election, but – depending on the court’s verdict – it is entirely possible that Phil Woolas and his agent will be fined and barred from holding office, even from voting in an election. Section 144(1) of the Act bars any appeal from the judges decision. However, if they fail to agree, then the original result will stand.
Expect a bloody fight. The name of Saddleworth is already imprinted on the British conscience as a place of dark and terrible deeds. As events unfold in Uppermill Civic Hall today, its reputation is unlikely to be enhanced.
UPDATED: Excellent resume at The Saddleworth News HERE.
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1
September 13, 2010 at 08:06 -
It’s funny how those dark and terrible deeds all seem to lead back to Woolas…
If he hadn’t proved himself so ready to send police officers round to peoples’ houses or send solicitors letters, I might have been tempted to mention his fragrant wife’s excellent lobbying company Morgan Allen Moore, or Mr Woolas, as Environment minister, giving a House of Commons pass to Mr Morgan’s then wife who had just set up – you guessed it – an environmental lobbying company. I hasten to add that nothing was ever alleged about Mr Woolas’ conduct, and I do not do so here.
We must remember, however, that it is against Mr Woolas’ ‘Uman Rights to stop him saying anything he damn well pleases against anyone he chooses.
And it’s against his ‘Uman Rights for us to question him too.
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September 13, 2010 at 08:09 -
It would appear the whole NuLabor project is turning out to also have been based on darkness and terrible deeds.
Now where’s Steven Purcell when you need him? -
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September 13, 2010 at 08:19 -
The ridiculous idea of Phil Woolas being strong on immigration should face a separate case under the Trades Descriptions Act or perhaps the Property Misdescriptions Act, or maybe the Consumer Protection Act “An Act to make provision with respect to the liability of persons for damage caused by defective products”. There must be something which prohibits the palming-off on to the public of these not-fit-for-purpose politicians.
Make Brown or Blair refund our money out of their personal fortunes.
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September 13, 2010 at 08:59 -
Was this not the little scrote that Joanna Lumley gave a good hiding to over the Ghurkas ?
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September 13, 2010 at 09:01 -
Thank you Anna for this fascinating post and which is very close to home, if you know what I mean!
Just to add a little local colour, Saddleworth of the “posh” bit of Oldham (it’s inhabitants insist they live in Yorkshire just to put more distance between themselves and the rest of the hoi poloi in the town).
Woolas is well known locally as an appalling Oaf.-
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September 13, 2010 at 09:35 -
It’s a bit dodgy up by Buxstones. I’d say it was Yorkshire but then Kirklees from Marsden is the nearest or maybe Calderdale from Barkisland. Same thing happens with Todmorden (where suicide is a lifestyle choice).
Quite interested in this case but Linda Riordan in Halifax has over 4,000 ‘suspect votes’, the Glenrothes electoral roll went missing; I just can’t believe this is the only one. It bloody stinks.
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9
September 13, 2010 at 10:32 -
It’s all a bit dodgy when you get up on the Moors proper! Todmorden, Marsden, anything past Diggle is too odd for me!
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September 13, 2010 at 10:50 -
Gildas,
Not quite on topic but amusing, did you know that when The League Of Gentlemen was being made they chose to place in Derbyshire as a location after rejecting Bacup (on t moors) because the locals were just too frightening. -
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September 13, 2010 at 18:41 -
Todmorden is also the gay/lesbian centre for the whole of Yorkshire. It must have something if Prince Charles takes a diversion from visiting some major towns & cities to visit it.
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September 13, 2010 at 10:47 -
I voted in May for the first time in several elections (living in Accrington means I don’t really have a vote unlesss I want to vote Labour) more as a protest against the government than with the intention of influencing anything.
One of the things that put me off voting for such a long time was the increasing tendency for candidates of all parties to say, “You have to vote for me, I’m not as bad as the other guy.”
That would however seem a good enough reason to vote for anyone except Phil Wollas.
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September 13, 2010 at 12:38 -
Saddleworth.??????????????????
Middle Earth teeming with Real Ale freaks,Femme Morris dancers,
Shakers, UFO clubs and Fell walkers in Corduroy shorts.
They still paint their dead with Ocre and prop them up for 14 moons
outside the Co-op.Far from the Madding Moor
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September 14, 2010 at 23:11 -
I knew Phil Woolas at University. Student politics was pretty rough – but he was probably the most decent guy involved in it. (He was General Secretary of the Students’ Union.) Although I was (as now) a Tory, he went out of his way to be kind and civilised to me.
This was obviously a very hard-fought election battle, with racial and cultural divisions as a backdrop. But the spectacle of Mr Watkins coming over all hurt is not an edifying one.
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