West Cumberland Hospital: the penny drops

On today's TV politics show, the Labour MP for Copeland and the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Borders were interviewed together talking about the threat to local hospitals and the need for the entire community to unite to defend them.

Credit where credit is due: it was a very good interview. David MacLean MP and Jamie Reed MP agreed with almost everything each other said, particularly about the point that Labour and Conservative MPs were working together to draw to the attention of the Strategic Health Authority that their policies do not meet the needs of Cumbria.

I've made the positive point first: but I also noted with wry amusement that Jamie Reed has finally dropped the absurd position which he took at the last election. A few days before polling day, as the Labour candidate for Copeland, he said clearly and explicitly that there was no threat whatsoever to West Cumberland hospital.

Today, by contrast, when asked if he could guarantee the future of the local hospital, Jamie Reed said that he did not think anyone could give such a guarantee. This is of course completely incompatible with what he said while standing for election.

He was wrong then: he is right now. Also right is everyone else who says we need to fight for our hospitals, at Millom and Keswick as well as Whitehaven. This includes doctors, nurses, trade unionists, jounalists and politicians.

I hope there will be a huge turnout for the "Save Our Services" march in Whitehaven on Saturday 9th December: assemble at Castle Park at 9.45 am.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more