Support the National Health Action Party in its bid to unseat Hunt and Cameron
Why is the fight against creeping NHS privatisation no longer gaining national headlines in the mass media? Do editors think it is no longer fashionable, or do they think the job’s done and they don’t have to bother any more?
Thank goodness for the Daily Mirror and its report that Dr Louise Irvine is to stand against Conservative Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt at the 2015 election, as the National Health Action Party candidate for South West Surrey.
She joins Dr Clive Peedell, who will challenge David Cameron for his Witney seat.
Both candidatures were announced at the NHAP’s national conference, which took place over the weekend. You probably didn’t even know it was happening, thanks to the priorities of the mainstream media.
The doctors have a hard challenge ahead of them – Hunt’s majority at the 2010 election was more than 16,000 votes. That’s 16,000+ more than his closest rival. Cameron’s was even higher – nearly 23,000 votes ahead of the pack.
But Dr Irvine told the Mirror she was ready for the fight: “I’ve faced Jeremy Hunt in the courts and beaten him twice. Now I’ll face him at the ballot box.
“He needs to be held to account for what he’s doing to our NHS and the way in which he has bulldozed democracy, changing the law to push through hospital closures when he was beaten in court.”
Of course, Dr Irvine’s pledge to stand against Hunt is a deep embarrassment for the Health Secretary – not only did she lead the successful Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, which won a High Court ruling that Hunt acted outside his powers when he decided to cut the hospital’s emergency and maternity units, but she is also a council member of the British Medical Association, which represents 150,000 doctors.
It is a sign that the medical profession at large is entirely opposed to his money-grubbing, postcode-lottery, health-for-profit policies.
Vox Political calls on voters in South West Surrey and Witney to support their NHAP candidates.
In Conservative stronghold seats like these, it seems realistic to expect voters to respond more to respected medical professionals like Drs Irvine and Peedell; there is also considerable distrust in Labour’s will to reverse NHS privatisation – but this may be alleviated if NHAP candidates are in the House of Commons, holding Labour to account.
The Mirror has been running a poll, asking readers whether they would vote for Dr Irvine against Mr Hunt. At the time of writing, 99 per cent of readers would, while less than one per cent support Hunt.
Other candidates announced at the conference include disability rights campaigner Naveen Judah, who challenges Liberal Democrat leader and Tory enabler Nick Clegg for Sheffield Hallam.
Ex-GP Dr Paul Hobday will take on Tory Sports Minister Helen Grant for her shaky majority in Maidstone.
In Truro, Rik Evans will try to topple Tory Sarah Newton, who has a majority of around 400.
Karen Howell, a popular member of the Support Stafford Hospital campaign, will stand for Stafford.
And Dave Ash, of the Keep of St Helier Hospital campaign, will take on Liberal Democrat former health minister Paul Burstow in Sutton and Cheam.
Kent GP Dr Bob Gill will be against Immigration Minister James Brokenshire in Old Bexley and Sidcup; Brighton University mental health expert Dr Carl Walker is standing in East Worthing and Shoreham and Oxford health journalist Roseanne Edwards will stand in Banbury where Tony Baldry has just announced he will not be seeking re-election.
NHA Party co-leader Dr Richard Taylor is hoping to regain his old seat of Wyre Forest, which he won as an independent in 2001 and held in 2005.
Notably no NHA Party candidate is standing for South Cambridgeshire, the seat Andrew Lansley holds with a majority of nearly 8,000. Perhaps this shows that they consider him a spent force who simply doesn’t matter any more.
This blog considers that it would be a valuable victory to unseat the man who spent seven years working in secret on what became the Health and Social Care Act – the legislation that allowed privatisation of the health service on an unprecedented, and entirely unwanted, scale.
Nobody should forget that the Conservative Party won its 300+ Parliamentary seats with a lie – the pledge, carried on posters of an airbrushed David Cameron, that the NHS would be safe under a Tory government.
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This is such good news!!! If you have heard any of them speak you will know they are excellent and really have expert knowledge of exactly what the issues are and how everyone is being so badly affected by these tory policies.
Things really are about to change!!!
Wonderful!
xxxxxx
What a great start to the week! Wonderful news! I wish the ‘Well Respected Experts’ of the NHAP every success!
Well done, for all that’s been achieved so far!
The truth will always prevail, ‘seek the truth, learn the truth, hear the truth, love the truth. speak the truth and defend the truth till death’.
So let the battle commence to save our NHS!
Fantastic news – well done to the NHAP for getting the party together and having so many members.
This is a time of change and I really do hope that they gain the seats that they are going for.
I’m hoping that this party becomes an established one and puts a kick up the erse of Labour.
I’ve just read with absolute delight that Kathryn Anderson, a pain management nurse from north London will ‘fiercely’ challenge IDS’s safe seat in Chingford and Woodford Green (lbwf Guardian). Chingford is home to many elderly (wealthy) residents who have been lifelong Tory voter’s. What they don’t seem to realise is they could be next on the governments ‘hit’ list! It’s time for a big change and the NHAP are moving in the right direction. It feels so good to hear that ‘every day normal well respected people’ are gearing themselves up to challenge this government for the sake of us now and future generations. Well done to them!
Well done to those standing, though it shows up the utter failure of the Labour Party that they even need to! Good luck.
Oh is that right?
There’s always one, isn’t there…
The Nhs is struggling I hope that someone is able to stop the Torys camoran and his bunch of lies are ripping this country apart he has to be stopped
The trouble is that voting for a single issue party is not popular, and as we know the mass media are anti NHS did anyone actually see anything of the jarrow to london march to save the NHS until it reached London, no thought not, and if you believe the media Stafford hospital has killed more people than auschwitz when the truth is there was possibly one preventable death, below the national average no one drank from a flower vase and the hospital is ranked higher than the PFI hospital that is going to take it over to gain the money to pay off the private finance initiative hospital it built at horrendous cost. The media are killing the nhs just as much as the conlablibdum coalition is
Con-Dem Coalition. Labour isn’t in it.
I know you Kippers get confused about that, sometimes.
The BMA had plenty of opportunity to try and get the “reforms” thrown out, but while people like me spent money we couldn’t afford on campaigns the doctors sucked it up until it was too late.
I wish I could believe this would make a difference, but the media doesn’t cover it because the legislation went through, didn’t you hear? It’s old news now.
The BMA is not the National Health Action Party, and you should read NHS: SOS which demonstrates the differences very clearly. All doctors are not the same.