News from Labour Matters

Lib Dem activist cooked up Kingston Hospital scare story in his kitchen

Max Freedman has the low down on an incredible Lib Dem scare story which enlisted the help of Nick Clegg to “save Kingston Hospital”, but the whole thing was cooked up in a local activist’s kitchen:

The Kingston campaign launch seemed so slick, right down to having Nick Clegg make a web video outside the hospital, that many were surprised that they seemed to have turned this around so quickly. Other surprised people were Healthcare for South West London, who stated that there are no proposals to shut our hospital units, and the hospital’s chairman, who said that closures were “inconceivable”.

It has now been revealed that this campaign was a scare story smear “cooked up at [the] kitchen table” of a prominent local Lib Dem strategist Dan Falchikov, who was amazingly caught on camera boasting of this in front of the political journalist and assistant editor of the Daily Mirror, Kevin Maguire.

On a train to Waterloo yesterday, Mr Maguire sent a number of tweets to reveal that “Train bloke boasting the hospital scare story cooked up at his kitchen table. Very proud of Facebook following”. He was able to take a picture of the man, which he also posted on Twitter, and was rewarded when his followers were able to identify him.

Read the full article.

UPDATE: The Chief Executive of the Kingston Hospital NHS Trust has now issued a denial of the Lib Dem’s scare story [pdf] to staff.

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