Conservative cant over Queen Mary's

When it comes to Queen Mary's Hospital, Putney's Conservative MP has some nerve.

She's been in the local press this week attacking the hospital for its record-keeping, which the hospital itself denies is harming service.

Given that the last Conservative Government all but closed Queen Mary's, axing its Accident & Emergency Department in the process, I find it hard to take any expression of concern about the hospital from her at all seriously.

Justine Greening has voted the way her party told her to 96.4% of the time since she was elected in 2005 - sycophantic even by Tory standards. So it's safe to assume that she would have been a cheerleader for her party's closure of Queen Mary's Hospital back in 1997 and would have voted against the increased Labour investment in the NHS that funded the rebuilding of it had she been in parliament at the time.

So forgive me for being contemptuous of her pathetic criticisms of the hospital, on the basis that the hospital is disadvantaging patients.

The Tory closure of Queen Mary's A&E disadvantaged patients.

All-but closing the hospital down entirely disadvantaged patients.

In comparison, complaining about the storage of patient records at nearby Barnes Hospital while the system for storing them electronically at Queen Mary's is being set up is a pathetic, trifling criticism aimed - just as her turning up to the opening of the rebuilt hospital in 2005 was - to get herself a cheap headline.

The real newsworthy story, which would be a first for her, would be to apologise for the appalling damage her party did to Queen Mary's last time it was in power. If she can't quite manage that, the least she could do is stop criticising the hospital - especially on such spurious grounds.