Labour defiant over Woolas apology
Labour is refusing to apologise for the Phil Woolas affair all the way up to polling day.
Candidate Debbie Abrahams and election coordinator Andy Burnham repeated the party’s line on the issue at one of the final campaigning sessions of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election earlier today.
Labour are expected to hold the seat in a race triggered by a rare election court ruling. Judges concluded Mr Woolas’ misrepresentations in election literature meant last May’s result was null and void.
“The judge made the ruling which we accepted in full and we took the action necessary and Phil paid a heavy price,” shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said.
“But as we get towards polling day what matters is the issues that matter to Oldham and the broken promises of this Tory government. It’s time to look to the future with an outstanding new candidate.”
The party’s new candidate Ms Abrahams, who took Labour from first to third place in the neighbouring Colne Valley seat in the general election, acknowledged that Mr Woolas had been a popular local MP.
“When he was able to do casework for them people were very pleased for what he did,” she said, adding that she represented a “fresh start”.
Ms Abrahams said she was “outraged” by a Lib Dem leaflet earlier this week which pointed out her claims about where she had lived for many years differed from her claims last year.
“So much for a clean fight,” she added. “I’ve had my family home in Newhey, just a couple of miles away, for the last 24 years. That’s easy enough to check on. It’s absolute nonsense.”
This is Labour’s first by-election contest in opposition for many years and the party has seized on a ‘broken promises’ agenda.
Labour has pointed to Greater Manchester police’s recent warning to the home affairs select committee that 1,400 police are going to be cut. But Lib Dem challenger Elwyn Watkins has insisted that the total number of police officers on the beat in Oldham will increase nonetheless.
“That’s an absolute fallacy,” Ms Abrahams replied, before attacking the Liberal Democrats for their tuition fees U-turn.
“Mr Watkins made the point about it being morally wrong that people should have that level of debt, he said he would be abolishing the level of tuition fees if he was the MP. He’s since come back on that and said he’d be supporting the trebling of tuition fees. So I’m not having that at all.”
Ms Abrahams added: “I will never make a promise I can’t keep.”
