Labour views on Trust are “unfair”

I am amazed that you chose to publish what was a bizarre and misleading letter from Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate, in which Miss Owen appeared to blame the local Hospitals Trust’s wacky decision (to spend more than £4 million on external advice) on the Coalition Government.
By The Newsroom
Published 20th Jan 2012, 05:00 BST

This is completely unfair, and unworthy.

As you have reported in the past, I am no fan of the Conservative Party’s approach to managing the Health Service, and have worked with other Lib Dem colleagues to avert Tory attempts to further the privatisation that was started under the last Labour Government, but I am glad that the Coalition’s instinct is to devolve decision-making to a more local level - however bonkers the decisions that can issue from time to time.

What we really need by the way is progress towards making these decision-makers more democratically accountable.

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But I wonder if there will be a shift in tone from Ed Miliband’s representative in Hastings, now that the other Ed has changed his mind, and stated that his economic starting point is having ‘to keep all these cuts’.

I expect the fact that she has spent far longer working for the Labour Party than she has for the NHS will enable Miss Owen to manage this sort of u-turn with finesse.

Nick Perry

Parliamentary spokesperson Hastings and Rye Lib Dems

Related topics:LabourEd MilibandGovernmentHastingsConservative Party