I have read all the election literature that has come my way. So far I’ve had it from my own party, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Ukip.

It’s fair to say that, of the four lots none has gone in for negative campaigning or knocking copy – except one!

The Conservatives have put forward positive ideas for the future of Kingston and Britain. I defy anyone to find a pejorative or non-factual reference to other parties in our literature. Labour hasn’t said much about anything, really. Ukip has confined itself to wanting to ‘kick ass’ in Westminster.

But every piece of Liberal Democrat literature without exception, whether local or national, has dripped sheer negativity and nastiness from end to end. Smears against Conservative candidates abound. Helen Whately ‘tried to undermine ED’s campaign to save Kingston Hospital’ (in spite of getting Cameron’s guarantee to close no services there) and ‘works for a privatiser of health services’ – whose work on the Surbiton Hospital site Davey welcomed a couple of years ago. Your local councillors ‘have failed to stand up to Labour over negative housing subsidy’ and neglected our council tenants, in spite of my 12 years elected by tenants as chair of Housing Consultative. If you’ve read their stuff you can fill in the rest for yourselves.

This sanctimonious humbug insults the intelligence of voters and reduces our public life to ignominy more insidiously and more effectively than all the moats and duck houses in the world. Their campaigning methods show the Liberal Democrats to be the REALLY nasty party in our country and Borough and, though it pains me to say so

if you vote Liberal Democrat – this is what you’re voting for.

I didn’t notice Mr. Davey making any complaints about the employment of the same firm as consultants on the future use of the Surbiton Hospital site. There was no talk about ‘privatisation experts’ when their report came up with the basic recommendation that the site should be developed as a polyclinic/ community hub. But, in my 20 years experience of them, the Liberal Democrats have never shown any concern either for accuracy or consistency in what they say.

• Helen Whately and Zac Goldsmith have worked with Shadow Ministers to guarantee Kingston Hospital. David Cameron was there before Nick Clegg and was unequivocal in his support for the A&E and Maternity units.
• The Conservative Group in RBK has consistently said that it will oppose tooth and nail any closures proposed by anyone – we even amended and supported a Lib Dem motion in full Council to create a unanimous front against cuts. And this ‘Voice’ is Mr. Davey’s response.
  
• How can any of us work with him when all he does is try to smear us and the Health Service personnel who are alarmed by his tactics?

Zac Goldsmith, Helen Whately and Shadow minister Pelling at an earlier visit ('Surrey Comet' photo)

David Cameron has paid a short visit to Kingston Hospital, but not as short as the ‘Comet’ link in the right hand column here would suggest. I hope the ‘Comet’ and other papers give fuller details in their printed edition.

The most significant thing he said, according to reports from people who were there, was that, if elected he would see to it that Kingston Hospital was safe from closures. He asked questioners ‘would you like that in writing?’

As I say, I look forward to reading a fuller account in next week’s paper.

Meanwhile readers mught like to follow this YouTube link and see a short statement by David Cameron and read a fuller account of the visit.

http://bit.ly/kingstonhosp

A mixture of films and speeches was very well received with some really good input from entirely new Council candidates, aided by Zac Goldsmith, Helen Whatley and Shadow London Minister Justine Greening. Nick Kilby featured as the impresario.

Unlike parliament, the Council doesn’t dissolve. It stays in being until the Council elections are over. Nominations close at 12 noon on Thursday, but I can tell you that Mavis Cracknell, Nick Kilby and I have all been validly nominated and hope to have your support at the polling station.

There will be no surgeries from now until after the election but Nick and I are still accessible by email and telephone and you will see us around – maybe on your doorstep – during the campaign.

I have one observation to make on the General Election. I firmly believe that Kingston needs a change of administration and Britain needs a change of government and I think most Surbiton Hill residents are of the same opinion. The plain fact is that there is only one party that can produce that change – the Conservative Party. The Lib Dems are not an alternative government and, if my experience of working with them in a hung Council from 1998 to 2002 is anything to go by – they are very unreliable partners for anyone in such a situation.

Helen Whately has worked immensely hard in the three years she has been a candidate. She is at least as experienced as the Lib Dem candidate was when he was elected in 1997. Her local connections are stronger than his were or are and she represents a new start for Britain, whereas the re-election of the Lib Dem candidate would be the local outcome most pleasing to Gordon Brown, because it would help him cling to power.

After an hour long commercial for the proposed school by RBK officers person after person in the audience spoke against the proposal on a variety of grounds ranging from restrictive covenants to the question of access and the general desirability or otherwise of location these two buildings close together. One mother of small children queried the advisability of having a school so clearly exposed to the variety of persons who would attend the polyclinic. An older person questioned to desirability of ill people being exposed to the noise inevitably associated at certain times of day with a school of upwards of 360 children.

Edward Davey began the evening speaking in favour of the proposal but ended it with a sideways move, saying that no alternative sites should be overlooked. This earned him a ripple of applause. This writer got a much louder round of applause when he pointed out that

1. a new school was necessary to cope with increased numbers but
2. RBK was evidently putting all its eggs into this one basket and
3. there were obviously many problems with this site that the officers’ presentation hadn’t covered but which could lead to
4. difficulties at the planning stage akin to those faced by the Sure Start Centre at School Lane, therefore
5. for goodness’ sake work out a plan B or you could be left in 2 years time with nothing.

The other big meeting was of the Council on Tuesday which debated ‘value for money’ and the way RBK treats its ‘customers’. The Lib Dems voted against a critical Conservative motion. No surprises there. What was surprising was that they failed to table the usual wrecking amendment.

There was also a debate on the Health Overview Panel’s report on the threat to Services at Kingston Hospital. Howard Jones and I both pointed out that the Lib Dems were trying to make a party issue between us on the matter and both a motion they proposed and a glossy leaflet they had just put out reinforced this view. I reiterated the Conservative party’s view on the matter and proposed an amendment which was accepted.

It went as follows, and is completely at one with our position and that of the party leadership nationally and of Helen Whately. “We support Kingston Hospital unequivocally and will oppose any attempt by anyone at any time to curtail the services it offers, particularly on maternity and A&E.” The amendment was accepted and carried unanimously by the Council.

We trust this will put an end to ‘disinformation’ campaigns by the Lib Dems on this issue.

Three representatives from NHS SW London and one from the NHS Kingston gave evidence for over two hours. They were quizzed by councillors, the MPs and members from a well packed public gallery including Helen Whately and Zac Goldsmith. As well as those mentioned both the Chief Executive and Board Chairman of Kingston Hospital were present to give evidence and ask questions.

It’s hard to summarise so long a meeting briefly and fairly. However some trends were apparent throughout. It was made pretty obvious from the start that the Lib Dem members had decided that the line to adopt was that the NHS reps were attempting to conceal reality from the public, which our intrepid MPs were in the process of preventing. They were not seeking information but trying to justify the actions of their party colleagues. The NHS reps had come armed with extensive documentation which they freely shared. Whatever questions were put to them, however hostile – and some were very much so (seeking to justify the ‘motion’ which was to follow?) – they answered temperately and thoroughly.

Essentially their point was that clinicians in SW London were trying to find ways in which patient care could be delivered more effectively than at present and with more effective use of scarce resources. They admitted that ‘no change was not an option’  and predicted overspends of about £300m within 6 years if nothing was done. They outlined ideas for public consultation when the clinicians work was done and also were at pains more than once to explain the status of a document the MPs had got which was labelled ‘final draft’. This document – or rather a small section of it, annotated – was presented in evidence in the documents circulated to members. The document was barely legible and its provenance uncertain, though I did think I recognised the handwriting of the notes. This was apparently a document prepared for internal NHS use whereby NHS SW London would explain to NHS London how far they had got in reviewing services in response to the Darzi report.

On the whole the assurances of the three that services at Kingston Hospital were not under threat in the way the MPs alleged were convincingly put. That certainly was the view of Cllr. Dennis Doe, with which I entirely concurred – both of us having asked questions of our own. They denied charges of secrecy, pointing out that the MPs had been briefed by them throughout as to progress.

Kingston Hospital reps suggested that much alarm had been created by the way the ‘story’ had been put into the public domain. They argued that, as Kingston was one of the biggest maternity units in SW London and very successfully so and its A&E had the largest footfall of any of the 4 hospitals in the area, it was inconceivable to them that anyone in his right mind would want to close these.

The meeting than heard from the MPs, who reiterated the contents of their website. They tried to claim credit for the fact that the meeting was taking place at all. In a sense they were right to do so as it might not have done if the story had not hit the press in such a sensational manner just before the last HOP meeting. They said they wanted the community to come together on this issue. I agreed with this line and repeated the assurances I had made on behalf of the Conservative Group and Helen Whately and Zac Goldsmith had given that we would resist closures should they be threatened. Earlier Helen had told the meeting of her contacts with Shadow Health Ministers and David Cameron who had given her assurances of support from the party leadership. In the light of this I asked Mr. Davey whether he thought that sensational leaflets about Labour closing the services and the railway station leaflet containing a puerile attack on David Cameron was the right way to get all party support for his position; if he wanted our support why not tell us what he thought he knew and ask for it? I didn’t mention the Falchikov story and, in fact, I was actually offering him an olive branch but he proceeded to hit me over the head with it, joined by Mrs. Kramer who said they had told us all they knew via their website. This, of course, depended on one’s knowing of the existence of said website which one didn’t unless one was a recipient of one of the numerous emails sent to all and sundry but not to the likes of me.  Anyway the upshot of what they both said was that they stood by the highly partisan approach they had adopted from the beginning. I conclude that talk about wanting all-party support and ‘the community coming together’ is just hooey! I am sorry to say that I further conclude that the motivation here is less about saving Kingston Hospital than about saving their parliamentary seats at the General Election. Community support is wanted only on their terms – ‘my way or no way!’

This impression was reinforced by the midnight activities of Cllrs. Jordan, Reid and Hitchcock. They had a motion to propose which they had been sitting on for well over four hours, which they ‘hoped we could support’. I asked to see it, but wasn’t shown it. Instead the Chair proposed an adjournment while they amended this motion. This was all a very irregular proceeding in this Panel which is not a decision making body and I was unable to elicit an explanation of the secrecy as to the motion’s contents, especially as it had plainly been drafted hours earlier. One suspected further Lib Dem grandstanding and one was right to do so. They eventually returned to the Chamber with’amended’ motion in hand. It was very long having a long preamble and 4 clauses to follow.  It was hurriedly proposed by Cllr. Reid and seconded by Cllr. Hitchcock. My colleagues and I had been given less than 5 minutes to study it but it was obvious that it was a crude, partisan attempt to railroad the Panel into supporting the position of the MPs as effectively proven, which it isn’t. It was insulting to the NHS SW London, accusing them of a ‘smokescreen’ (after a two hour questioning!) and bullying Kingston Hospital into keeping quiet about the closures. This last point had to be withdrawn on the plain statement by the Chairman of the Board that it was untrue and they hadn’t been bullied. The ‘motion’ as a whole was a travesty of what had taken place in the past five hours. Dennis Doe and I tried to get further parts deleted so that it stuck to known facts. We had some success but we couldn’t in conscience accept the preamble which was at the core of the railroad attempt. Accordingly we voted against the motion, which the Lib Dems carried. So we’ll have a debate about it again at full Council in March, as that was part of the motion.

The meeting rose at 12.35 a.m. or thereabouts.

The debate concluded:

Mike O’Brien: The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Davey) can wait, because I spent a lot of time listening to him make a lot of allegations, and I have been left with a very short time to respond to him. He deserves a response, because a lot of people in his area have been frightened by what he says. They are now worried that there is some sort of plan to close these NHS facilities, which there is not, and that there is more going on than just some discussion between clinicians. I accept that that is happening, and it is part of the Darzi process of involving clinicians in discussing how to improve the quality of services, but he and the hon. Member for Richmond Park are playing politics with the matter. I care about the NHS, and I actually think that behind it all they do too. What they are doing, however, is trying to frighten people into believing that services are definitely closing, when all that is going on is some discussions between clinicians. What the eventual proposals will be I do not know, and nor does he. We should not at this stage use scare stories like this for election purposes, in a cynical way-

House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)).

Local Liberal Democrats Edward Davey MP and Susan Kramer MP have made claims that NHS organisations in south west London are considering an option to close the maternity and A&E at Kingston Hospital.

Healthcare for South West London strongly refutes any claims that there are secret plans to close A&E or maternity units at Kingston Hospital or any hospital.

The hospital’s management and the NHS in South West London have refuted the Lib Dem claim stating that “there are no secret plans to close A&E or maternity units at Kingston Hospital”. I attended the hospital’s board meeting on Wednesday 27^th January, and heard the Chief Executive and Chairman both criticise this campaign, describing it as ‘irresponsible’. They are concerned that it is being stirred up for political purposes, without thinking of the impact on staff, recruitment (just when the hospital needs more midwives) and patients.

It is vital that hospital staff are able to continue delivering the best possible care for local people without the turmoil of a campaign to save the hospital if this is not a real threat. What the hospital needs at this time is an end to rumours, a focus on the facts, and support from the local community. I had my son George there 18 months ago, and I will be supporting the hospital, whatever happens.

Read the full text of the letter from NHS SW London and Helen’s letter on this issue on our new HEALTH AND HOSPITALS page.

Click on the link at the head of this page.