Here are two facts -
Fact 1 : I received a letter today from Gregg McClymont, my local Labour MP. In spite of being an anti-SNP propaganda letter, it was printed on House of Commons paper and was sent in a House of Commons envelope, and so was presumably paid for with public money. In the five years that he has been my MP, I had never previously heard from Gregg McClymont.
Fact 2 : One week ago, an Ashcroft constituency poll of Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East was published, showing that Gregg McClymont is on course for a crushing defeat at the hands of the SNP in May. Unless something changes over the next three months, his nascent career as a Labour frontbencher is about to be abruptly and unexpectedly snuffed out.
These two facts are, of course, entirely unrelated.
Today the truly evil face of Labour became clearer than ever.
ReplyDeleteTheir determination to manufacture a "Crisis in the NHS" will kill people. They don't care. It's bad for Labour if 75% of Scotland has a positive opinion of the NHS. And if it's bad for Labour it needs to change, regardless of outcome.
If 75% of people are positive, this is good for staff, raising moral in a service which will always be under pressure without a magic money tree. More importantly it's good for patients as we know from empirical studies that the Placebo effect exists. People with a positive expectation of treatment are more likely to have a positive clinical outcome.
I can't believe that Jenny Mara and the rest of Scottish Labour don't know this. The very fact they will attempt to manufacture a "crisis" and potential kill patients if they are successful with their disgusting attempt to create fear of treatment and care provision pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the "Party First" new Labour ideologues.
You do know that your rather bizarre argument invoking the placebo effect could be used by any incumbent party, no matter how much of shambles they've made of the NHS? "How dare you play politics and make accusations of a crisis in the NHS, you're damaging the morale of patients and staff and putting lives at risk!".
DeleteI can only be used by an incumbent party when the public has a very favourable opinion of the service provided. The reality is there is no crisis in the NHS, people have a positive opinion because it's a very good service, I'm currently an outpatient at Glasgow Dental Hospital and the service is impeccable and the treatment excellent.
DeleteThe truth with A&E is that people waiting 20 hours are the Comedy Gold stories you read about in Funny Old World. Morons turning up because they've got a hangnail and can't put a plaster over it till they see their GP the next day. Labour know this, you know this, the media knows this.
Hospitals use portakabins because there is the largest Hospital contruction programme in Scottish history currently underway and that means termporary buildings used.
But the core is that Labour are demonstrating how little they actually care about anything. They think the NHS is a good issue for them and they really don't have anything else to offer. Lives will be put at risk, Labour don't care.
Oh please, you don't think that the SNP wouldn't use the NHS as political football is the opportunity arose? Surely you remember all the "NHS under threat" stories that came on the tail end of the referendum campaign? Every party throws whatever manure they can over their opponents in the hope that it sticks. As for whether or not a crisis exists, that's entirely a matter of perception. If you want there to be a crisis, you're damn right there's a crisis!
DeleteBrit Nationalists need to move on from the Referendum. Try coming up with policies on real issues and not inventing ones about an NHS with record levels of public satisfaction.
DeleteAlastair allan you need to sit in a proper A&E Dept and not the dental hospital. I can assure you there is a crisis in the nhs in both adult and child hospitals and I can assure you I am no Labour voter either!
DeleteAh so now my own experience is just the "wrong part" of the NHS. Utter bollocks. The public perception doesn't end up the way it is from a service in crisis. The only viable definition of crisis in the NHS is an increase in mortality. There is none, mortality rates continue to decline year on year as they have for decades.
DeleteI came across Greg McClymont with his two minders in Milano Restaurant in Cumbernauld. My impression is of a self important individual who has come up through the Labour Party system. I would struggle to ask him for objective advice.
ReplyDeleteI draw your attention to item 3 in this link.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-commission/Stationery-rules-2011.pdf
Maybe they have revised the rules, but it looks to me that your MP has breached that one.
We're also in the pre-election purdah period, during which MPs aren't supposed to send any unsolicited mail to constituents at all. This sounds highly dodgy.
DeleteDon't get me wrong, Anon - it's a carefully-worded letter using the Scottish Government as a proxy for the SNP. He's basically asking people to sign a petition or go to a public meeting to complain about cuts "overseen" by the Scottish Government. That may techinally make the letter permissible if it relates to his duties as a constituency MP, although I'm not sure what the rules are about Westminster MPs chasing up devolved issues.
DeleteI think it still breaches purdah unless it was in reply to correspondence you sent him.
DeleteAs far as I can gather, purdah doesn't start until the dissolution of parliament at the end of March. So it can't really apply to this sort of thing because there are no MPs after dissolution.
DeleteWhat 'Anonymous' said - various parliamentarians have received a rap over the knuckles for this abuse over the years. Complaint to the House and cc Private Eye.
ReplyDeletePurdah is usually the 28 days prior to election taking place. I'm English & in England & our NHS is worse performing than Scotland's. That doesn't make it bad though just not as good.
ReplyDeleteLabour only says things that are in it's interest. Health is devolved along with education so they are going to hit both with a vengeance. It's up to everyone else to call them out on it whenever it happens as happened today when Jenny Marra posed in front of a disused health centre & declared that it had a low staffing problem. Twitter lit up with everyone telling them the place had been closed for a year because Scot gov had built a replacement next door. Enjoyed that one!
Alastair allan I can assure you the NHS in Scotland is in total crisis, the only solution is to elect a Labour government with no SNP interference who will ensure that the introduction of a free market within the NHS cures it of its ills. The evil SNP will stop this happening as they foolishly place priority on you idiot Scots instead of industry and business who are the real wealth and prosperity creators.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI'd written out a reply then realised you are being sarcastic. Don't think I've woken up yet.
DeleteBut it had a couple of points I like so I'll include it anyway :-
It seems to be a crisis that is entirely in the minds of Labourites. Few in Scotland believe it. No-one in Scotland seems to actually witness it. As I said on twitter, is doomed to fail if it wants to go around telling people in Glasgow that the SNP is failing the NHS and not investing in the NHS and a danger to an NHS in crisis while most of the population can see a 13 story, state of the art hospital dominating the skyline. (Is it the tallest building in Glasgow now?).
Even the Dundee Courier, that once diehard Labour rag, was talking about The Thick Of It when recounting Jenny Mara's stunt of doing a photo op against "NHS dangers" outside the disused former tiny clinic she was visiting with Melanie Ward while completely ignoring the state of the art £5.8m medical centre which she was starting at behind her photographer
Alasdair, I'm with you in principle, but when you describe the Dundee Courier as a once diehard Labour rag your credibility on matters journalistic drops several notches. DC Thomson is well known as an anti-Trade Union, anti-Catholic employer which has sucked the capacity for original thought out of Dundee for generations.
DeleteToday's YouGov sub-sample: SNP 40, Lab 32, Con 18.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this looks a bit better for Labour, it also looks like the 18-24 bracket has dragged down the SNP score. SNP / PC only scored 3% in that age range, 6% in the 25-39 bracket and 4% in each of the two older ranges. The 18-24 bracket was massively up-weighted from 112 to 210, so the Scottish element must have been based on very few respondents.
"looks a bit better for Labour"? It will be on the front pages then.
DeleteLabour are 'weaponising ' the Scottish NHS what else can they do their London masters are going to run a GE campaign entirely based on the threat to the English NHS so SLab have to follow suit.
ReplyDelete95% of Scots in the Ashcroft poll in January described their last experience of the NHS as good or excellent (61% excellent).
The 75% approval is a net figure I think it was 86 approve 11 disapprove
The Labour Party is caught between a rock and a hard place. For the first time in living memory, candidates in their heartlands are going to have to actually campaign (a steep learning curve), as your letter from your MP shows, while their membership numbers have fallen off a cliff. They just don't have the boots on the ground. The English supporters they drafted in to help in the Referendum will have their hands full at home, trying to overcome the Miliband factor. Admittedly their tame cheerleaders in the BBC and the MSM will bend every sinew to help, as they did in the Referendum.
ReplyDeleteIt will be fascinating to watch. With any luck, the Labour Party will disintegrate completely. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of unprincipled gombeen men
The Labour Party is caught between a rock and a hard place. For the first time in living memory, candidates in their heartlands are going to have to actually campaign (a steep learning curve), as your letter from your MP shows, while their membership numbers have fallen off a cliff. They just don't have the boots on the ground. The English supporters they drafted in to help in the Referendum will have their hands full at home, trying to overcome the Miliband factor. Admittedly their tame cheerleaders in the BBC and the MSM will bend every sinew to help, as they did in the Referendum.
ReplyDeleteIt will be fascinating to watch. With any luck, the Labour Party will disintegrate completely. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of unprincipled gombeen men
SNP + PC are above the Lib Dems in a GB poll for Ipsos Mori.
ReplyDeleteLab 36, Con 34, UKIP 9, Green 7, SNP / PC 7 , LD 6.