I have just got back from Downing Street where I joined a delegation from Havering, Redbridge, Barking & Dagenham and Waltham Forest, to present a letter asking the Prime Minister to reject the flawed plans to close the A & E and maternity units at King George Hospital.
With the demonstration and march tomorrow, the campaign is attracting strong cross party support from all four boroughs, including Redbridge's leader Cllr Keith Prince and deputy leader Cllr Ian Bond. The MPs in attendance were Labour's John Cryer, Mike Gapes and Margaret Hodge, and Conservatives Lee Scott, Andrew Rosindell and Angela Watkinson. When we arrived on the doorstep of Number Ten, Iain Duncan Smith came out of the building to join us - perhaps he had taken the opportunity to brief David Cameron personally.
When we handed our letter over we had coverage from the Ilford Recorder, BBC London and London Tonight's Simon Harris, so we can expect to see our efforts on the news tonight and perhaps on Sunday's Politics Show.
A big crowd turned out to show the strength of feeling and there were plenty of bright yellow campaign T shirts in evidence. We can only hope that the government takes note at the highest level and reverses the damaging closure plan.
5 comments:
Great work Roger, nice to see you there with Lee and your other colleagues. A very good call to highlight the issue to the wider general public too.
I'm shocked to hear you are going on a march: further proof of your new radical politics, I think: first the communist hat wear, then the brown shoes, now this. Take a balaclava helmet, in case you get kettled in Trafalgar Square.
Nice to see a genuine cross party campaign for the good of your constituency. You don't fancy moving to Barnet do you?
It's perhaps worth noting to those commentators on this site who don't know our local Hospital Trust, that a significant part of the problem has been the excruciatingly bad management in place for many years.
The Trust has run up massive debts which have to be addressed, and morale amongst its staff is at rock-bottom. The proposed re-organisation is a ham-fisted attempt to deal with some of these problems whilst trying to hide the disastrous effects of historic bad decisions.
Refreshing to see people working together....
Post a Comment