LABOUR has become embroiled in a row about the use of personal data after sending cancer patients alarmist mailshots saying their lives could be at risk under a Conservative government.
Cards addressed to sufferers by name warn that a Labour guarantee to see a cancer specialist within two weeks would be scrapped by the Tories. Labour claims the Conservatives would also do away with the right to be treated within 18 weeks.
And how are those "rights" working out under Labour? I've been reading lots of stories about potential patients dying while waiting for that first appointment.
Cancer patients who received the personalised cards, sent with a message from a breast cancer survivor praising her treatment under Labour, said they were "disgusted and shocked", and feared that the party may have had access to confidential health data.
Vote Tory, guys, it's the only way to stop such behaviour.
Labour sources deny that the party has used any confidential information. However, the sources admit that, in line with other political parties, it uses socio-demographic research that is commercially and publicly available.
Demographic research is not generally ever issued with individual names and mailing addresses attached to the data points.
Many of those receiving the cards have undergone cancer scans or treatment within the past five years.
- In the Labour constituency of Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, two of a group of eight women friends received the breast cancer card. They are the only two to have undergone cancer treatment. One of them, Phyllis Delik, 80, described it as "callous" and "despicable". The second woman, Shirley Foreman, 58, who received the card a fortnight after undergoing surgery, said: "It is bad taste after what I have been through."
Too right, ladies. Vote Tory.
- In the marginal east London constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, the card was sent to a 44-year-old television producer who had a potentially cancerous lump that turned out to be a cyst. She appeared to be the only person who received the mailshot among 50 neighbours. She said: "It's crude and insensitive."
Indeed. Vote Tory.
- A card was sent to a woman who has died of breast cancer. Her 33-year-old husband was so upset that he sent a message to the Facebook page of Diane Dwelly, the woman whose case is featured in the mailshot, accusing her of being a pawn for the Labour party.
Or an innocent bystander whose name and story were somehow extrapolated from a demographic research report without her permission.
This weekend Dwelly, 48, from Rugby, admitted she had "probably been used by Labour". She believed her photograph had been taken for use in a magazine for the National Health Service, not as part of Labour's election campaign.
Your identity was stolen, Ms Dwelly. Vote Tory.
The cancer cards are part of a wider postal campaign targeting various groups. Others are aimed at parents whose children attend Sure Start centres, pensioners and the owners of small businesses.
Labour has so far sent out 600,000 cards. It plans to distribute 4.5m during the election campaign.
Figure about three million will be disgusted. To them we say, vote Tory!
#7
Only if there's a valid UKIP candidate in your district, I hope, Nimble Spemble. No point in voting in the greater of two evils by default. "Most electable conservative", not "most conservative". Same reason why I'm not paying a bit of attention to the various "more Republican than thou" opponents of Pat Toomey here in Pennsylvania - not only is it "his turn", but he's an actual Club for Growth original. That's conservative enough for the Commonwealth.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/11/2010 12:19 Comments ||
Top||
#8
My concern there is that its too conservative for PA.
#9
The largest employer in all of Europe is the UK's NHS. Buildings and buildings and buildings full of bureaucrats as far as the eye can see.
The budgetary process in Parliment is full time about trying to pay for this behemoth leviathan of a system that no one really likes.
Mark my words, the Democrat's will use the same exact language when election time comes and those numb in the brain will believe it.
People should watch Parlimentary debates in the UK and other countries sometimes. It may be enlightening to what the US may have to face in the future. It's splendid "paradise".
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will use Al Franken to whoop up the crowd here at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
In a three-minute video set to be played, Pawlenty notes his state's historical Democratic lean, and delivers a line that is sure to draw some jeers.
"Seeing so many Republicans is certainly a nice and welcome break, coming from the land of Mondale, Humphrey, Wellstone and, now, United States Sen. Al Franken," Pawlenty says.
Pawlenty also jokes about his reason for not attending the conference in person. He stayed in Minnesota to welcome home returning troops.
"Contrary to what you might have heard, I didn't cancel my trip to New Orleans because the Saints beat the Vikings on the way to the Super Bowl a few months ago," Pawlenty said. "Although, as I think about it, that does remain a sore spot between (Louisiana Gov.) Bobby (Jindal) and me."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
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#1
The donks are constantlyt criticizing Palin for lacking smarts and experience. However, in a room with BO and Al Franken she is looking like the most experienced and smartest.
Sen. Arlen Specter says he has an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to become the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but three senior Democrats are blocking the deal. Better hurry, Arlen, November is coming up fast ...
Specter (D-Pa.) has worked diligently behind the scenes to boost his seniority on the Senate Judiciary and Appropriations committees and hopes to settle the issue before the election.
"The arrangement I had with Reid [D-Nev.] is that I would have the same seniority as if I had been elected as a Democrat in 1980," Specter said in an interview with The Hill. "I would be behind [Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick] Leahy [D-Vt.], and when he moved up to chairman of Appropriations, I would move to chairman of Judiciary."
When Specter switched to the Democratic Party almost a year ago, he was given the last seat on the dais of the Judiciary and Appropriations panels. He has since turned into a model member of the Democratic Conference, voting with party leaders more than 95 percent of the time, and worked to convince his fellow Democrats to support his deal with Reid.
"Sen. Reid and Sen. Leahy worked it out with half a dozen of my colleagues that I would be ahead of them on Judiciary," Specter said. "On Appropriations, this is something that Reid is working on now. The issue is not over."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
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#1
Specter (D-Pa.) has worked diligently behind the scenes to boost his seniority on the Senate Judiciary and Appropriations committees
Explains why he spent so much time in the Senate dining room kitchen.
#2
Yeah, being the chief water carrier for Barry's supreme court nominees will really help Arlen win votes in PA. Too bad for Arlen Philadelphia doesn't elect a senator.
#3
time for this decrepit POS to go out to pasture
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2010 9:53 Comments ||
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#4
Boy, the senate seniority system is efficient in letting the scum work its way to the top of the pond...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/11/2010 10:32 Comments ||
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#5
They have in Specter's experience, NS. The union counties in the west and the inner Philadelphia counties cancel out the "T" counties, leaving the balance of power in exurban Philadelphia. Hopefully those Obamoid turncoat Scranton/Rockefeller voters have gotten over their socialist moment & revert to the norm. Luckily Toomey isn't nearly as hard-core social-conservative as some alternatives, making him electable this season in the greater southeast.
I hope.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/11/2010 12:25 Comments ||
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#6
He has to get past Sestak first. That may be a contest. Hopefully it leaves the winner wounded.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Selangor government has been left in the dark with the sudden withdrawal by renowned Thai pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand from the Teoh Beng Hock inquest. State officers were huddled in meetings with lawyers on their next course of action, especially with the inquest set to reconvene on April 20. Pornthip was expected to testify on that day, with many eager to know the details of her report on Teoh's second post-mortem.
Thirty-year-old Teoh was the political secretary to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah and had been summoned to be questioned over allegations of irregularities in the state funds on July 15, 2009. He was however found dead the following day on top of the fifth floor adjacent to the building.
Newsportal Malaysiakini reported today that Pornthip, the director-general of the Bangkok-based Central institute of Forensice Science (CIFS), has withdrawn from the inquest citing "political" pressure from the Malaysian government that could affect her work in Southern Thailand. In her earlier appearance in the Teoh inquest, Pornthip had said that the DAP political aide's death was "80 percent homicide". The Malaysian pathologists however had insisted that Teoh could have plunged to his death or suicide.
This is not the first time Pornthip has claimed that she has been harassed because of her participation in the inquest. Previously she had said that she had been followed by unknown persons during her trips to Malaysia to testify. Her testimony at the inquest had also been rubbished by the government, especially by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Aziz who today accused the Thai expert of lying. The federal government has not officially responded to Pornthip's claims that she had been pressured to pull out from testifying in the inquest.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
