Time fails to heal ex-MP’s deep sense of injustice

Phil Woolas: bouncing back, but not without scars

A new series of Martyn Meets begins with shamed former Oldham MP Phil Woolas
A CENTRAL London pub — a proper pub, with a proper name — seemed the most natural location in the world to meet Phil Woolas.

I had persuaded the former Oldham East and Saddleworth MP to break his silence nearly three years after his acrimonious removal from his seat in the Commons.

Phil had represented Oldham since he defeated Lib-Dem Chris Davies in the 1997 General Election landslide that swept Tony Blair to power.

It is a matter of record that Phil was not removed by the electorate — he won four successive elections in what was once a Lib-Dem seat or Conservative marginal and is now regarded as a Labour hold.

He remains as contemptuous today about the affair — and contemptuous was a word he used often and with venom, quite unexpectedly in a man previously thought of as fairly gentle and kind.

He wasn’t bitter at his removal from Parliament by an “arcane” piece of legislation drafted in 1911 for a different era and wholly different circumstances. But he was, and is, disgusted by the process.

“I remain utterly contemptuous of a system that allows two judges to overrule the express will of the people — and this in the country that gave the world democracy. It is the only act in statute that does not allow for an appeal. Murderers and serial killers are allowed to appeal. I was not, but that is not really the point is it?

And with that he rested his case. Except he didn’t really.

I found Phil, 21 months on from his rancorous expulsion from what had become his passion, his life, to be a mellow, relaxed, comfortable bloke, ready to chat in the amiable way we have always conversed, about a myriad of subjects from football to Osbornomics.

As a total aside to this piece, I have to say that Phil has always confounded me. He is and remains a socialist to his core. Yet he has a respect for our Chancellor, George Osborne that I find intriguing.

“George can’t grasp the microeconomics of the man in the street, people like you and me and the price of a pint or a pie, but he does understand the world of macroeconomics and I have always found him to be a decent bloke,” he says.

To say I was astonished when Phil said this — as we bumped into each other outside Old Trafford ahead of a Manchester United match — is an understatement. But it does reveal the character of the man, an open, honest individual prepared to give credit where it’s due.

But he gives no credit to either of the judges who sacked him or his opponent, Elwyn Watkins, who used the 1911 Act of Parliament originally designed to guard against misappropriation to force a re-run of the 2010 election.

Time — it was in December 2010 and January 2011 that the events unfolded - hasn’t brought any waning of the sheer injustice he feels.

So what has he been doing since, I asked - when he returned to the pub from his office in nearby Piccadilly Gardens, to where he had rushed to take a conference call from New York.

“Making a living. I had to. I was thrown out of the House of Commons and didn’t have a job or any income. I had a wife and young family and I needed an income.”

Had Phil left in different circumstances at the 2010 election he would have received a huge chunk of redundancy, but a change of rules meant the former MP was no longer in receipt of public funds.

Twenty one months on, life is good for the Woolas household - but this is only my suspicion; Phil smiled in that mischievous way many have seen over the years when questioned about the viability of his new line of work.

He now owns Wellington Street Partners, a consultancy advising individuals, businesses and corporations on the working of the British parliamentary system.

“We aren’t lobbyists, absolutely not. We advise people on how parliament works, how the political system works - and luckily there are of people wanting that knowledge. We help to break down the cynicism that can often engulf people’s perceptions of politics.”

The ‘we’ in that equation relates to Sir Sydney Chapman, a former Conservative MP who once fought the Stalybridge and Hyde seat; and Paul Keetch, who stood down from his Liberal Democrat seat at the 2010 election.

“We have a balance across all the political spectrums,” says Phil, adding that he is the major shareholder. “Sir Sydney is the non-executive chairman and Paul has a wealth of knowledge and experience which is available, but basically it is my business.”

He has office staff - including Shona Woodfines, his former Parliamentary aide; and Phillipa Garner, whose parents live in Greenfield (and with whose father Jeff I worked with at the Ashton Reporter - small world).

“Life is good, life is free. For the first time in as long as I can remember I am not at anyone’s beck and call, not the chief whip, or Tony Blair or the public of Oldham.”

But Oldham is never far from his thoughts. He still has a house in Lees, which is now rented as the family live full-time in Hounslow. He often visits the town, and remains a trustee and director of the Ace Centre in Hollinwood, a charity that helps people with complex physical and communication disabilities.

“I love Oldham and Oldham people. I gave 15 years of myself and I am proud of those years.

“Oldhamers are very special people. They are hard to get to know and easy to misunderstand. But they are as easy to get on with as anyone I have met anywhere in the world, and when I was Minister for Climate Change I saw an awful lot of the world, believe me.

“I was quietly proud when people said of me, ‘He’s a hard so and so is that Phil Woolas, but he’s our hard so and so...’”

What of the future for this man of Scunthorpe - raised in Burnley when his engineer father Dennis moved the family to Lancashire?

He’s 53 now and has lived a full life already, having been president of the National Union of Students when he read philosophy at Manchester University, then spent an eternity working in television news before entering politics.

“I joined the Labour Party when I was 16. I’ll be honest - itwas so I could get a membership of the local working men’s club and get a pint when I was under age.”

It’s a lovely aside, but deep down Phil is a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, albeit one of Blair’s New Labour Babes.

He worked for George Galloway in the dim and distant past, before the Respect MP became the celebrity rebel he is today, and also worked as a researcher on the BBC’s iconic “Newsnight” programme “when Jeremy Paxman was a proper journalist” he says with a laconic smile.

He was the first producer when Parliament was televised live in the 1990s and also worked with serious media figures like Jon Snow and Eleanor Goodman of Channel 4 News before standing for Parliament in the by-election caused by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens’s untimely death in 1995.

He lost that time to Chris Davies but won two years later, and held the seat for 13 years.

“I took my job seriously and was very proud to serve Oldham. Being an MP is fulfilling, but it is not always enjoyable.

“But I wanted to serve and help make a difference and yes, I did aspire to higher office and was happy and proud to be a minister. But it was draining and exhausting.

“I can remember one trip took me from Rio de Janeiro to Oldham to New York and back to Oldham before I next went to Parliament.

“I honestly believe that had I not been so utterly exhausted in 2010 then I may have fought harder at the parliamentary court. But, as I say, I was contemptuous, and still am, of the whole process.

“Will I stand again as an MP? No!”

It was emphatic and unequivocal. I put down my pen and we shared a few private moments of reflection. But I for one wouldn’t be surprised if Oldham hasn’t seen the last of Phil Woolas.

After all, Michael Meacher can’t go on forever, and Phil has a winning record in Oldham...