Sketch: Right and wrong in Oldham East and Saddleworth
Not many of the Oldham East and Saddleworth schoolchildren Lib Dem Elwyn Watkins came to see will be old enough to vote in three days’ time.
This did not seem to be a problem for Watkins, the Phil Woolas-slaying coalition government candidate with the orange rosette.
He was visiting Friezland primary school, on the fringes of the well-off part of Oldham East and Saddleworth, where the children were given free range to grill the man who wants to be their next MP.
Woolas’ demise had not escaped the notice of these schoolchildren, who treated the matter very seriously indeed. They may not know the ins and outs of the Representation of the People Act, but they knew who the villain was. It was a simple story of truth and fiction, mistruths against honesty, justice against wrongdoing. Most were sympathetic to the victim in this electoral fairytale.
“They were really horrible,” Watkins said sadly, in response to one question about the Woolas affair. “Lying is always wrong.”
Not just lying, either; there are “consequences” for breaking rules, just as there are for running around in the corridor. “We don’t want people lying or cheating,” Watkins said firmly. Schoolchildren are unlikely to end up losing their seat in parliament, but this didn’t seem to be the point.
There are consequences for breaking election pledges too, but education was the least of these pupils’ concerns. Their main worry was road safety, a matter which Watkins laboriously explained was the responsibility of the council as well as the government. Tuition fees wasn’t mentioned once. “If any of you were thinking of going to university, I would urge you to,” Watkins suggested tentatively. He got away with it. So did Annette Brooke, the Lib Dem MP chaperoning Watkins for this session, who was nervously wondering whether they would raise her voting record on tuition fees. Unfortunately for the watching journalists, these children hadn’t been reading Hansard closely enough to get that question in.
Watkins seemed happy to acknowledge that the ordeal of the court case had been horrible. “Was it very scary for you?” asked Brooke sympathetically. “It was very scary,” Watkins replied solemnly, grateful for the prompt. Those judges, “with their long wigs and their gowns”, did the worst possible thing any politician can face. “They could ask me whatever they wanted to” – a fate worse than death! But Watkins remained stubbornly upbeat. “It was a very worrying time for me. But I’m glad I did it.”
The vast majority of this impressive bunch of children wanted to be given the right to vote, but only about a third of them wanted to be an MP. This latter show of hands was a little awkward, for it came after Watkins had explained that “being an MP is an honourable thing”. But on reflection it was probably surprising that even this fraction expressed an interest in being an MP. Shouldn’t they be aspiring footballers, or astronauts, or at least C-list celebrities? Perhaps the expenses scandal has had a positive impact, after all.
Watkins was on firmer ground when it came to the controversial new Tesco in Saddleworth. These primary school children probably weren’t looking forward to the planning question as the big highlight of the day, but Watkins managed to gain top marks by making it relevant. The government’s centralised control of the system enrages Lib Dems, as Watkins attempted to demonstrate. “It’s a bit like a group of children from another school deciding your school rules,” he explained.
Time for another tricky question: what was his favourite thing about being a Liberal Democrat? Was it having Nick Clegg as party leader, perhaps? Might it be the ability to have a real impact on the course of the nation through coalition government? Or even the pupil premium, Brooke’s pick? In the event, none of the above. “I don’t like telling people what to do,” declared the free-spirited Watkins. Whether people wanted to “stay up all night” (a big vote winner) or “roam around in caravans” (slightly more confusing), he was all for letting them do it.
There was only so much time available for this session, which Watkins and Brooke were at pains to explain was their most “favourite” school visit of all. Now we were coming to the close. “You can only have one winner, but it doesn’t make the other people losers,” Watkins said reflectively. Had he seen William Hill increasing his odds of winning to a miserable 9/1? Perhaps, but the children seemed confident he had done the right thing.
“Children can see in black and white what’s right and what’s wrong,” Brooke told me afterwards. “They kept coming back to that, you know – it’s wrong to tell lies about somebody.” Watkins, the man who challenged those lies, will be hoping these children get the message across to their parents before it’s too late.
