Posted by Steven on Wednesday Dec 13, 19:17
During Prime Minister's questions on 29th November, John Prescott said:
"The House should welcome the fact that the Christie hospital, a specialist cancer hospital, remains open, despite what was said during the election campaign by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech), who campaigned together with the Tories on the basis that this facility would close down or not be opened. It has, in fact, been opened this week and is now serving the people of Manchester. If the hon. Gentleman had been a bit more honest, he would have thanked the Labour Government not only for the continuing promise to keep the facility, but for the 11,000 more nurses, 1,000 more consultants and 600 more GPs that are serving his area and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley). That is a Labour Government in action. We are delivering, and the people in this country are grateful for it."
Clearly our local MP has a reputation outside the constituency for being less than honest about the "closure" of Christie Hospital.
+ tags coming soon
( 24 Comments )
Alan
Thursday Dec 14, 20:40
Whilst I completely agree with everything Prescott says, he's hardly one to preach about honesty is he?
peter h
Thursday Dec 14, 22:29
maybe I'm an old cynic but I detect old fashioned political smoke screens here. There is an increasingly desperate cry of "christies!" coming from labour party hacks increasinlgy desperate to divert attention away from NHS failings under Labour. And it doesnt work. It may keep you guys amused, but the rest of the world has moved on from Christies. As an issue, it's a ded duck to the voters. Move on.
Your market/pfi-driven health service is creeking at the seams. you've thrown huge amounts of money at it and screwed up. the country's full of near-bankrupt health authorities, youre tying them in to long term debt to private investors, you can't find an nhs dentist for love nor money. Don't get me wrong, you mean well and I'm sure some bits do work well. It's not some pseudo-tory attempt to shut the thing down. It's just plain incompetent management. And you know it. That's why you trot out the Christies red herring ad nauseam (look it up in the dictionary lads , between nanny state and navel gazing, I don't suppose they teach latin in the "academies" round here).
Withington Observer
Friday Dec 15, 12:18
The Christie Hoax IS NOT a dead duck. Though many of the people who received John Leech's nasty scam leaflets in 2005 while waiting for chemo and radio therapy may well be dead. And the relatives of dead people are the victims of his latest hoax about Southern Cemetary. Leech must apologise, certainly for distribution in hospital, but for the whole thing. It was wrong headed and ruthless.
Leech himself mentioned it in a Westminster Hall debate on Road Pricing only this week (Weds 13 Dec):
John Leech (Manchester, Withington, Liberal Democrat)
First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) on securing this important debate on a subject about which I know he is very knowledgeable, which makes a welcome change from his early-day motion earlier this week on cancer services in Greater Manchester.
(snip of blah blah blah)
Comments
Withington Observer
Posted on 15 Dec 2006 11:03 am
John Leech, John Leech, John Leech! Graham Stringer's remarks on your Christie hospital hoax, and those of Andy Burnham a few weeks ago - when you were unfortunately neglecting your parliamentary duties and instead making a fool of yourself in Manchester Council Chamber with one of your other jobs - are spot on. There is no amount of repetition of your protests that will make what you did in your stop-at-nothing campaign to ghet elected seem honest or reasonable.
You claimed that Christie Hospital was threatened with closure. This was entirely bogus. And I notice that you have since been pretending that all you said was that services would change. Rubbish! You claimed CH was threatened with closure. With no evidence and absolutely no basis in the truth.
You claimed that 60 Doctors had signed and submitted a petition against the "closure" and that a report of this in the MEN pre-dated your own efforts. Bogus and bogus. No petition or representation was ever signed by 60 doctors or submitted according to Freedom of Information Act requests. And as far as observers can tell your plot pre-dated the erroneous stories in the local newspaper which made the same errors that you have made and continue now to post-rationalise.
Your literature suggested that the quite routine practice of Christie patients having operations and tests and so on at other hospitals near to their homes - for this is a regional hospital - which had been the established practice was somehow new.
You defied the remonstrations of the non-political executives of the hospital, the trusts that what you were doing was entirely wrong headed and unhelpful. And you attracted headlines and comment in newspapers along the lines that your making of Christie into a political football was completely inappropriate.
Your campaign - and this is less well known - also included a targeted letter to women in the constituency which in effect was scaremongering about women's cancers. Using unmediated national statistics, giving no guidance on risk factors, and it seems to me essentially part of your overall scare tactics. These have now been extended to entirely bogus scare stories about Manchester's Southern Cemetary.
A very good friend of mine who has been resisting prostate cancer for more than ten years now - already living for five times as long as his prognosis - was by chance visiting Christies for therapy when you launched your vile campaign. He found your disgusting propaganda being distributed in patient waiting areas. This is breathtaking when you think about it. Your team distributed your nonsense about this fine hospital being threatened with closure to people who were involved in a life and death struggle with cancer. What is more this people are 99% NOT voters in Withington constituency. What on earth possessed you to attack these people's well being with your fibs?
This friend is back in Christies as we speak. Receiving excellent care there. This hospital was never threatened with closure. People in the Life Sciences have an adage that if a subject is NOT changing it is DEAD. Christie hospital must change continuously to serve its patients. You and your acolytes have a real problem with change. You are deeply conservative. You are risk averse. And your own campaigning handbooks encourage you to flirt with the truth, exaggerate shamelessly and so on and so forth.
What you have said in the Westminster Hall debate on transport is mostly arrant nonsense or platitudes but that is pretty harmless. What you did on Christie was not harmless. It was vile and despicable. It was a terrible hoax. I cannot imagine what you were thinking of when you raised it in this debate.
peter h
Friday Dec 15, 19:47
pathetic, absolutely pathetic
peter h
Friday Dec 15, 23:01
and while youre tugging the heart strings about your mate with cancer, a close friend of mine suffers from severe mental illness. She was able to get help on her doorstep at Withington, but now the poor sick sod has to traipse out to Wythenshawe because you lot shut the bloody hospital to turn it into flats.
That hospital served this community. 2 of my kids were born there. A 3rd died there. It was there for us when we needed it. Don't DARE lecture us about trusting Labour's word on shutting hospitals. you forfeited that right long since. Hypocrites
Rod
Monday Dec 18, 12:14
peter h. If u think that the NHS is worse under Labour then you that should be recieving treatment for mental illness. We will continue to lecture who we like about the disgusting behaviour of John Leech. The man is a LIAR. Don't tell us what we can say and what we can't. State your opinion but don't censor others.
John Holliker
Monday Dec 18, 12:44
Seems to me the only answer JL and his Lib Dems have is:
1. The Doctors signed a petition so it must have been true that the hospital was under a threat of closure.
2. er...
3. that's it.
So with that logic in mind, I'm about to launch a petition entitled 'Prince Phillip is an alien' and if 60 people sign it then it must be true.
Peter H would avoid his reflection in a mirror if he could.
Dave
Tuesday Dec 19, 12:56
Why start a petition? We all know Prince Phillip is an Alien... well his ideas seem to come from another planet anyway!
Alan
Wednesday Dec 20, 08:29
Phil's a legend!!
Ian McGarry
Wednesday Dec 20, 09:04
Yes, he's done wonders over the years for race relations.
John Holliker
Wednesday Dec 20, 16:21
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6196675.stm
I'd have posted this earlier in the day but thought I'd wait until I finished chuckling.
peter h
Wednesday Dec 20, 17:05
you lot have not once shown me any evidence of john leech being a liar, just the fact that you guys hate him, and after 2 years the only thing you can find to strike out with is this single issue which the majority of the local population will disregard.
Therefore you are digging your heads in the sand and making yourselves look fools to everybody except your small coterie of mates.
Christies is indeed a wonderful hospital that does great work. But , in respect of local politics, it is a minor issue because it quite simply does not affect the day to day lives of the majority of voters, whereas Withington Hospital, on which you all maintain an embarrassed silence, affected every single inhabitant of the consitiuency, the poor schools affect every single parent, the Iraq war affects every person. Yet YOU accuse ME of dodging issues. Wrong.
I'm not against labour. I'm telling you that with Christies you're fighting the wrong battle.
Alan
Thursday Dec 21, 09:56
You've not provided us with any proof he's not lying!!?
John Holliker
Thursday Dec 21, 10:31
Oh for gawd's sake..how many more times Peter? Your MP tells a whopping fib that anybody with any sensibility and level-headedness knows is a nonsense.
Oh, but that's a minor issues is it?
So the Health Sector Chiefs, the Sec of State, regional and national journalists have it all wrong and John Leech has it right?
I hope you enjoy Christmas in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Bob
Thursday Dec 21, 11:37
I think it is becoming increasingly important to his Lib Dem colleagues who are getting agitated about his bizarre behaviour( siiting in the council chamber on his own like a complete nutter is one example).Even his co-councillors are whispering behind his back that the Christie issue will cost him his seat.
Dave
Thursday Dec 21, 15:41
I still don't think a lot of you Labour supporters get it. The reason why I voted John Leech was that it was purely a protest vote at how Labour had turned into the Tory party and over the issue of the Iraq War, for as long as Tory Blair is still in power wasting money and lives in Iraq, I would imagine a lot of disgruntled ex-Labour supporters such as myself will still continue to vote for who ever has the best chance of keeping Labour out!
Labour supporters and Labour candidates need a change of tatic quick, (I could still vote Labour, but not with the present agenda that they have). If you don't change tatic you will loose power at the next election (and not a moment too soon currently!)
peter h
Thursday Dec 21, 16:00
well said dave.
Bob, Christies won't cost John anything, because only the political anoraks pay any attention to the issue of its closure any more.
John, I believe JL on it, because all the evidence I have over the years is that he is a hardworking and honourable bloke, and lots of labour party members shouting "yah boo" in an increasingly desperate manner does nothing to change that opinion.
In fact your concentration on that one minor dead issue suggests that you are struggling badly to find any meaningful angle against him, which in turn suggests he's winning and you're losing.
Like Dave, I'm basically a Labour voter, driven away by a variety of issues which you know very well and try to dismiss without argument, because you know you have no defence against them. It is those issues - especially Iraq - which lost you the seat, not Christies , and it is those issues which will prevent you regaining it
bob
Thursday Dec 21, 20:20
He's not an "honourable and hardworking bloke" he's a liar who used cancer patients to get him into power and once there he has dug his snout deep into the trough. He lied about Southern Cemetery closing. He lied about Christies, he is an embarassment to his colleagues and totally out of his depth.He is taking two wages as well as the highest expenses of any MP in Greater Manchester. Here's a challenge for you leech groupies. What one thing has he achieved as an MP since he was elected??
peter h
Friday Dec 22, 16:27
it's a pity labour removed withington hospital's psychiatric unit from the area. Bob and Get Rid of Leech and his ilk could've used its services. Calm down, laddies, you'll do yourselves an injury and withington's no place to be doing that after what you guys have done to the nhs facilities round here. Just goes to show the failings of care in the community............
desperate, truly desperate.
bob
Friday Dec 22, 18:50
did he imply Christie hospital was closing when he knew it was not? yes or no?
peter h
Friday Dec 22, 22:59
don't know, don't care.
just like 90% of the voters in this constituency.
grow up and stop trying to fight dead battles.
if you and your mates are typical of the calibre of local labour activists that explains why you managed to lose this seat with the biggest swing against labour in england.
you go on and on and on ad nauseam about a dead issue. You scream at and insult the opposition and just make yourselves look like a bunch of juvenile tossers.
The only way you'll ever convince people like me and other ex-labour voters is by coherent argument and reasoned debate. Childish insults just make your cause look childish. With a few exceptions (John Holliker when he can be arsed, Steve occasionally) you just make fools of yourselves
peter h
Saturday Dec 23, 07:50
at least you give us a a good choice of turkeys for christmas
Alan
Saturday Dec 23, 15:53
Peter, you are always posting all these statistics (90% of the constituency doesn't care), are you a pollster, or are you just talking as much BS as Leech does!
Alan
Saturday Dec 23, 15:54
On another note, hope you all have a good Christmas!!
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