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Labour leader tells supporters to look to the future in the seat forfeited by the disgraced former MP Phil Woolas
Labour leader Ed Miliband chose the subject of crime to launch the byelection defence of Oldham East and Saddleworth, a bold decision given that his party forfeited the seat by breaking the law.
Ringed by posters saying "Save our police", he fired up the local faithful at a church hall Question Time by accusing the coalition of threatening 66 frontline jobs in the Greater Manchester police's Pennine patch.
He deflected questions about trust in the party, after the disgrace of the former MP Phil Woolas, by saying: "We must move on and look to the future, not the past." But he also found himself fighting a rearguard action over another criminal issue: his former cabinet colleague Bob Ainsworth's call today for the legalisation of drugs. "I am all in favour of fresh thinking on drugs but I don't agree with him on decriminalisation of drugs – I worry about the effects on young people, the message that we would be sending out," he said.
The issue resonates in Oldham East and Saddleworth because of earlier campaigning tactics by Woolas, who was unseated on Guy Fawkes Day by the high court and barred from public office for three years for making false personal attacks on his Liberal Democrat rival, Elwyn Watkins.
During previous campaigns against the former Liberal Democrat MP Chris Davies, now an MEP for the North West, Woolas made Davies's soft line on cannabis legalisation a major law and order issue.
Miliband insisted that political blows between now and polling day on 13 January would be above the belt. He said that Labour's candidate, Debbie Abrahams, a public health academic and former manager who lost the neighbouring Colne Valley seat to the Tories in May, would "do what Labour does best – re-engage with the people, listening and restoring faith by running a campaign squarely based on the facts".
The Liberal Democrats, who had Vince Cable touring the seat, suggested that things were already slipping. They pointed to Miliband's charge that their swift moving of the writ – a breach of Parliamentary convention that gives precedence to the defending party – was designed to hold the poll when students were on holiday.
A spokesman for the Lib Dems, who are fielding Watkins against Abrahams, Tory Kashif Ali who also fought in May and the BNP leader Nick Griffin, said: "This is another sign that Labour just doesn't understand the constituency. With polling day outside term time there will actually be many more students at home in Oldham than otherwise would have been the case."
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