- The general election campaign's first instance of "manager bashing" has been recorded. A Conservative party leaflet has attacked Labour over "interfering" NHS managers. Health Service Journal Roundup 15 March 2001, Guardian 16 March 2001.
- NHS remains under strain
Today's agenda
Election 2001
Guardian
Saturday May 12, 2001
- Tony Blair's carefully orchestrated election tour was finally disrupted yesterday when he was confronted by a woman raging about the state of the
NHS.
It was his first unscripted campaign encounter with a member of the public, as opposed to the carefully selected ones Labour officials present him with. He did not enjoy the experience.
Sharron Storer, 38, from Hall Green, Birmingham, blocked his entrance to Queen Elizabeth hospital in
Edgbaston, Birmingham. She was distraught about the treatment of her partner, Keith Sedgwick, 48, who has cancer. Guardian
Thursday May 17, 2001
- I was standing behind Sharron Storer when she told Tony Blair about the neglect of her sick partner in a National Health Service at the end of its tether. What was striking wasn't her anger or the sound of nurses cheering her on, but the Prime Minister's face. It was the face of an actor paralysed by stage fright. Storer wasn't in his script.
Observer
Sunday May 20, 2001
- GPs back woman who berated Blair
Guardian
Monday May 21, 2001
- Now GPs join in the Birmingham hospital protest
Guardian Letters
Monday May 21, 2001
- Tony Blair made his most populist election speech yet when he promised yesterday to crack down on thugs who attack nurses, paramedics, doctors and teachers. Guardian Society
Thursday May 31, 2001
- The health service has emerged as a big issue in the election. All the parties recognise that consumers are getting a poor deal. The media gives us daily stories of tragic misdiagnosis, long waiting times for life-saving operations, dirty hospitals and unacceptable mortality rates for major illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. If the NHS were a commercial organisation in a competitive market it would have gone bankrupt years ago. Just as British consumers have switched to better-made German and French cars, given the opportunity, they would have switched to better quality European medical care.
Guardian
Saturday June 2, 2001
- The low voter turnout mars the very basis of Labour's electoral mandate (Blair cruises to victory, June 8). Guardian Letters Saturday June 9, 2001
- For many, it was a tough decision between two unpalatable choices. But, in the knowledge that things could not get any worse and the hope that things really would get better, they voted for the lesser of two evils. Guardian
Monday June 11, 2001
- OK, we'll vote for you. But we haven't forgotten all this...
Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday June 12, 2001
- MPs return to the House of Commons in a new mood. If Tony Blair was sombre in victory, so are they. Three weeks' door knocking was a sharp reminder of uncomfortable things out there. In their weekly surgeries they see plenty of trouble, anger and grief: they all have Sharron Storer moments - so much to be done, delivery or death. Polly Toynbee
Guardian
Wednesday June 13, 2001
- One of the UK's top civil servants, NHS chief executive Nigel Crisp, has launched a passionate attack on the "insulting" media coverage of the health service during the recent general election campaign. Guardian Society Thursday June 14, 2001
- Real accountability must make a return to local democracy if the government wishes to boost turnout in elections, says Dennis Reed
Guardian Society Friday June 15, 2001
- Blair has the freedom to do what he likes - at a price
In this second term, we'll know just who to blame if things go wrong
Hugo Young
Guardian
Thursday June 21, 2001
Guardian leader, March 30, 2000
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