Politics and Mid Staffs

Politics and Mid Staffs

Cure and supporters claim that their campaign is not political (presumably they mean not 'party political) but simply a campaign centred on and motivated entirely by a desire to improve patient care. They contradict this purported purity of purpose by their focus on "accountability" by which they mean a search for criminal punishment, in some case for people who are really quite remote from any connection with poor care at Mid Staffs.

For all their disclaimers, Cure have stated in the past that they would be a "thorn in the side of Labour"at the general election (see comment here: http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/julie-bailey-on-linkedin-delusions-of-grandeur/ ). The public inquiry was granted by a Conservative-led coalition, with the support of Tory MP Bill Cash. A public inquiry is entirely a political exercise, and it achieved very little over and above the original Francis inquiry. They have made sustained attacks against local Labour activists on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, and indeed have taken issue with their local MP, Conservative Jeremy LeFroy, for not supporting those claims of harassment. In fact, the issue of Stafford Hospital is a non-partisan issue in local politics, which seems to irk Cure.

Their inital attacks on Andy Burnham fell flat because they relied on the misuse of statistics from the Keogh Report. Their use of minor Tory backbencher Charlotte Leslie to repeat their libellous allegations under the cover of parliamentary privilege has made her look like a patsy for Cure. She could only have got these allegations from CTNHS, directly and indirectly, and it sullies the office of member of parliament to simply repeat such unfounded allegations that arise out of personal vendettas in the House of Commons. The Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, has granted Cure what they wanted entirely because it suited his agenda. He has not however implemented the recommendations of the Francis Report yet.

The CTNHS campaign against "Labour activists" shows that they have well and truly hitched their wagon to the national Conservative party (while continuing to disparage local Conservatives including the Stafford MP Jeremy Lefroy). They have served as "useful idiots" for the Conservative privatization agenda.