Tom Costello's Treatment - letter October 2010

Dear Sir,

Last week the CNJ published a letter from Richard Arthur, Chair of Camden & Islington NHS Foundation ('Decision is not financial') concerning the case of Tom Costello.

I don't know the ins and outs of Mr Costello's case and obviously am not a doctor. However, the very first sentence of Mr Arthur's letter greatly annoyed me. He wrote: 'You have featured the move of a service user to Northampton.'.

This adoption of the term 'service user' (which while particularly rampant in the health service is increasingly used elsewhere) is dehumanising and uncaring, especially when used as a device to avoid mentioning Mr Costello (in this case) by name.

A health service (or indeed any public or private service) which blinds itself to the fact that it is dealing with individuals who each have a name and families and friends will always run the risk of failing to reassure us that it is on our side, rather than the side of the administrators and bureaucrats.

So please will Mr Arthur and his chums on other local quangoes that are supposed to be acting in our interest do just that and start using our names and thinking of us as human beings rather than as service users, customers or consumers. I accept that this may not alter the medical opinion of what is best for Mr Costello, but it might remove the suspicion that such decisions are taken in the interests of the health service rather than the interests of an individual such as Tom.

Yours etc

Labour Splits - Letter October 2010

Dear Sir,

Did you notice the result of the Labour Party leadership election? Not that Red Ed beat Dave, but the votes by Labour members in Camden?

At special meetings in both Hampstead & Kilburn and Holborn & St Pancras CLPs, the activists voted overwhelmingly to back Red Ed, with Diane Abbott second and David Miliband third. They then sent out recommendations to their local membership to vote for Ed.

The released results, however, show that the full local membership of both local constituency parties preferred moderate David Miliband over militant Ed Miliband (just as they did across the whole of London).

So the local Labour activists are clearly out-of-tune with their more moderate membership. Will Labour's Camden leadership now seek to repair this rift, as their new leader has attempted to, by not joining this month's big demonstration against the cuts to public services and by not backing the strikes their union friends are threatening?

After all, as Red Ed has now admitted, the Labour Party fought the last election promising almost as many cuts of its own...

Yours etc

Red Ed sports letter - October 2010

Dear Sir,

The Crow was covering the Labour Party Conference last week, so I hope he noticed the footballing preference of the 'Camden born and raised' Red Ed Miliband.

His first official outing was to a football club, but was it Arsenal?

Oh no! In Ed's case, the 'Red Ed' tag points to something much worse...

He went to Man U!

A warning to all Arsenal (and Spurs) fans, Ed Miliband is definitely noton your side!

Yours etc