Dear Claire,
Well, I was going to be writing about the promises made by Cameron in
his “contract” prior to the 2010 election today. We’ll get to that tomorrow,
but today I’d like to highlight some ridiculous, undemocratic stupidity from the
big cheese himself.In Cameron’s own constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire, he has attended one hustings meeting only. In Witney, there is a candidate standing for the National Health Action party, Dr Clive Peedell.
Dr Peedell, a consultant oncologist, has been invited to every hustings meeting except…..guess which one? Yup, the one which Cameron graced with his presence. Another candidate, Christopher Tompson, standing as an Independent candidate, was also turned away at the door, despite having been accepted as a candidate for this hustings meeting.
After months of fruitless wrangling over the televised leaders’ debates, David Cameron has been accused of dodging a less obviously risky encounter: a church debate with a doctor who is mounting a long-shot challenge for his seat in Oxfordshire.
So now, we come to the blame game: who excluded Dr Peedell from this meeting, held in a church in the constituency? Of course, Cameron’s team denies exerting any influence on the event beyond security matters. But in an email to a photographer who was also barred from attending, organisers explained that they were following “instructions … from Cameron’s office”.
Dr Peedell said “They’re just so worried about those past episodes with Blair and Brown and Major, the public getting involved.”
The debate was organised by Churches Together, an ecumenical organisation in the prime minister’s constituency. When Peedell contacted Churches Together to complain about his omission, the organisers replied they had “no idea” that he was running.
Despite emailing to point out his existence a fortnight before the 10 April event, and noting that his details appeared on the first result of a Google search for ‘Witney candidates 2015’ , Peedell was informed by Nick Hance, the church organisation’s vice-chair, that it was now “too late to include you”.
“I think Cameron dodged it,” said Peedell, who is campaigning for increased health funding and an end to the NHS internal market. “It’s clearly being stage-managed. They don’t want him to be challenged by people with expertise in a specialist area, especially the NHS.”
Duncan Enright, the Labour party candidate, described the tight control of the event as “The Mrs Duffy effect”, a reference to Gordon Brown’s unscripted encounter with a disgruntled member of the public during the 2010 election.
According to Hance, the only contact with the Conservatives “was to do with security implications so that they could mount the appropriate defence of David Cameron”. The strict controls on the event were not limited to the candidates, however. A photographer for the Oxford Mail, Damian Halliwell, said that he was made to leave the church by Natasha Whitmill, Cameron’s election agent in Witney, in favour of the church group’s official choice, Mark Hemsworth, who is from Chipping Norton, regularly photographs Mr Cameron and has tweeted his approval of the Conservatives .
Whitmill said that the choice to only allow one photographer had been “a decision the organisers made”, any suggestions of interference were completely untrue and that “anything untoward was for security”.
Hance insisted that Cameron’s team had been “at pains to point out that they were not going to interfere”. But in an email sent to another photographer excluded from the event on 8 April, and CCed to Whitmill, Hance wrote: “Following instructions this morning from Cameron’s office, I have been asked to limit the number of photographers present … to just one person – namely Mark Hemsworth.”
So, the Tory party say they haven’t exerted any undue influence and Churches Together say they were acting on instructions from Cameron’s office.
If the Tory’s record on the NHS has been such a spectacular success, what does Cameron have to fear from someone standing as a candidate to champion that cause? Could it be that, in the same way as Cameron chickened out of a head-to-head with Ed Miliband, he realised that someone clearly his intellectual superior would make mincemeat out of him at a public meeting?
Let’s just remind ourselves of something Cameron said in his “contract” before the 2010 election:
“So this is the contract with you. I want you to read it and – if we win the election – use it to hold us to account. If we don’t deliver our side of the bargain, vote us out in five years’ time.”
Dr Peedell was going to do exactly that. Hold Cameron to account over the NHS. What sort of democracy is this? One that insists in the absolute sanctity of everyone’s right to be heard, to speak out, to protest, to debate the current issues, UNLESS IT WILL MAKE CAMERON LOOK LIKE A COMPLETE IDIOT IN FRONT OF THE PUBLIC!
Some democracy indeed! The spectre of an Orwellian regime continues to hover over the Tory party’s campaign.
Kind regards
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