Fluttering through my letterbox this morning comes Pendle Matters, the newsletter from Pendle’s Conservative MP.

It tells me more ambulances are going to Burnley General Hospital’s Urgent Care Centre.

This is encouraging, but not quite good enough.

Whatever happened to the promise to re-instate Burnley’s Accident and Emergency Department?

Last April, Stephenson gave the voters the big come-on. Vote for me and I’ll deliver. 

“Andrew Lansley takes the opinion that the A&E Department should not have been closed down. He believes it should re-open and he is keen to work with a Member of Parliament to get it re-opened… Pendle needs an MP who will work with the Government to get the A&E Department back.”

Stephenson talks about the Cooke/Cobden review (see attachment)

"to see if the UCC should be re-designated as an A&E department".

In fact, this review, which was ordered by Broon in the dying days of the last Government, should have reported months ago.

Seems to me that if it recommends the status quo with tweaks (ie Burnley keeping its Urgent Care Centre but with more ambulances) then Stephenson will go along with it - despite the promises last year. He is not the kind of MP to cause a fuss.

I am not sure if Burnley’s blustering Lib Dem, Gordon “hospital campaigner” Birtwistle, could get away with that kind of finessing.

He famously described the UCC as a "first aid post" and is likely to view a few more ambulances as scant reward for all his valiant but, to date, wholly ineffective efforts.

Last September he told MPs

I have stood behind a campaign table outside Marks and Spencer every Saturday morning for more than 107 weeks

Yawn!

Still, he's made an impression on someone.

I notice he got a condescending pat on the head from David Cameron for “liberating Burnley”.

A toxic endorsement, if ever I heard one,  which will not save him, no matter how many freezing mornings he spends buttonholing M&S shoppers.

Calamity Clegg and promises

Anyway… talking of the Lib Dems and broken promises…

The classic text book example is, of course, Calamity Clegg and his tuition fees pledge.

So deep is the sense of betrayal that nobody believes a word of what he says anymore.

Certainly not in Barnsley where the Lib Dem candidate famously limped in sixth, losing his deposit.

Clegg will try his best to move things on at this weekend’s Lib Dem Spring Conference in Sheffield, but the past will always haunt him.

A year ago, at the very same Spring Conference, he warned people against voting for the two old parties. If they did, they would get:

“The same old promises, always broken.”

During the election Clegg sprayed promises around, no matter how extravagant.

Telling the voters what they wanted to hear.

There must be hundreds of examples from all around the country.

During a visit to Burnley, just days before the general election, the Lancashire Telegraph told its readers that Clegg had insisted the Lib-Dems had a “firm commitment” to restoring the blue light A&E at Burnley hospital.

“If we make savings we can protect A&E departments and of course reopen the A&E department here in Burnley.”

Sounds like a pledge to me.

But still, alas, undelivered.

It can’t be easy for Clegg remembering what he really, really promised and what he just promised.

He will be back on 20 a day in no time.

Attachments:

A&E. March 2011 Pendle Matters.pdf	[More ambulances at Burnley General]	350 Kb
Lansley at Burnley (PM Oct 09) .pdf	[Andrew Lansley at Burnley Oct 2009]	480 Kb