Monday 12 April 2010

HOW DID THE LABOUR PARTY LAY ITS HANDS ON PRIVATE NHS ENGLAND ADDRESSES?

“We are a group of clinicians, staff and campaigners working in and with the NHS. Every day, every week, we see first-hand the quality of care which the NHS gives to patients when they need it most. At this election we are backing Labour as the party of the NHS which will do the most to improve it for all patients.


“There is more to do to improve the NHS, but it is this Labour Government which has shown commitment to the NHS by investing in more doctors, nurses, more services and new hospitals and GP practices. It is Labour who are making the tough decisions that will allow our NHS to be protected in the future from spending cuts which would harm patient care. And only Labour are prepared to put patients first, for example with guarantees to rapid access to cancer specialists and cancer tests.


“For these reasons we believe only Labour can be trusted to protect and improve our NHS at this election."



This is a copy of an email petition (brought to my attention by Dubbieside. Thank you DS), which was sent by a Development Officer of the Labour Party, Amy Fowler, to GPs’ work e-addresses, which as they are internal NHS addresses, are not publicly available.

The petition, once signed, was expected to be sent to a newspaper, to show that members of the medical profession (presumably in England), were backing Labour.

[Obviously the only way that either the Tories or Labour can hope to affect our health service in Scotland is to change the amount of money that they generously give us to run Scotland. Even in this case, there is no way of knowing where a Scottish Government of any stripe would cut their cloth.]

Some of the clinicians, who are worried about how the Labour Party, as opposed to the government, got hold of private email addresses, are concerned that they may be blacklisted if they do not comply and sign the petition.

The Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The Labour Party need to explain how they have received these NHS e-mail addresses. If they are using the NHS private e-mail system to reach NHS staff for party political campaigning it is an abuse.” (It’s a pity he spoiled that reasonable call, by adding some unsubstantiated drivel about health care staff backing the Tories!)

Well, Labour seemed to be perfectly happy to (allegedly) use private patient information regarding people suffering from cancer for their party’s benefit, why would they not use private addresses and blacklisting?

Amy Fowler or her boss needs to do some explaining.

Pictured: Andrew Lansley Shadow English Health Spokesman; Nichola Sturgeon, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health and Deputy First Minister


4 comments:

  1. Tris,

    I agree with you that the shadow health secretary is correct to call on some candour from the erstwhile Labour ranks.

    But who is surprised, honestly. This is the Party which has put off a strategic spending review, in order to avoid GE meltdown. This is the Party which since Brown was appointed has refused to call an election to give him a mandate and let the people have their say. This is the Party which, let us not forget, assaulted that poor old pensior and holocaust survivor a couple of years ago for daring to shout "rubbish" at Jack Straw..

    these people have lost all credibility, this feels like the dying days of the Major government. It is time to evict Labour from office, perminently.

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  2. People were positing the dirtiest campaign ever, though so far only Labour and the Lib Dems (Tory Vat bomb, when Vince Cable admitted they might put Vat up themselves) seem to have sunk to new depths.
    It's no wonder people refuse to have anything to do with politics and politicians, the stench of corruption from all parties turns them away.

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  3. Well Dean, the most useless Prime Minister in the history of the union is hanging on with a dying breath to power, but I have to say that even after disaster wrought upon us by this band of self serving, incompetent buffoons, the most right wing “Labour” party in the world, I should imagine, the best that the Tories can do is be slightly ahead.

    They lie, they cheat, I see that they want us to pay for the court case that they think that people of their station in life shouldn’t have to go through; they send lads to war with canvas tanks and no boots, and no body armour, they double the basic rate of income tax, after promising not to, the put up NI after promising not to, the put up the top income tax rate after promising not to. They don’t even remember that the put up VAT in January and lie to people about that.

    They run the government with people in the House of Lords. The most senior cabinet member is in the house of aristocrats, along with the transport blokey with the inappropriate name; they raid government files, what few they haven’t lost or had stolen by leaving them on trains or in cabs, or entrusting them to dodgy carriers unencrypted, for details of cancer sufferers so that they can write to them and tell them the Tories will leave them to die.

    And still all the Tories can do is more or less ‘be ahead’. It really does show how little confidence anyone has in Dave’s team.

    Sorry Dean, I think it’s a sad state of affairs.


    I'll say this for the Tories, at least the "lord" who is being done for fraud hasn't asked us to pay his legal expenses. That's something, I expect he'll mortgage the stately pile or something. ;¬)

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  4. Yes QM. But give the Tories a chance.

    I see Dave had a weep on tv tonight.

    Of course I understand why he would weep over the death of his lovely wee lad Ivan. It must have been the most terrible thing, as indeed was the death of Brown's child.

    But all politicians draw the boundaries before these interviews and frankly one can't help thinking that both men acted in poor taste allowing their respective children's deaths to be mentioned in an election period.

    That is as low as you can go. It leaves most other things well behind, and makes me wonder what kind of person could do that, and what kind of person could suggest it.

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