Ellee Seymour

David Cameron has made an embarrassing error by wrongly claiming that maternity services at King’s Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital were under threat in his latest high profile announcement of NHS reforms. The fault was blamed on a typing error, according to this report in the Eastern Daily Press.

A Conservative spokesman claimed that the King’s Lynn hospital had been wrongly included in the latest list of 29 hospitals as having an accident and emergency or maternity services under threat because of a “typo in a grid”. I would feel furious if I was in David Cameron’s shoes.

Only last week, Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb was forced to apologise  after admitting his report as health spokesman incorrectly labelled kitchen hygiene standards at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital as among the worst six in the country.

The public needs to feel confident about the accuracy of information being presented by political leaders highlighting their campaigns, this kind of sloppy presentation can only backfire against the party and create the wrong kind of headlines. As a result, the front page splash in today’s EDP states: “Tory Leader in NHS Gaffe” - the whole story is about this error, rather than the wider message.

I certainly would have liked to have seen someone from Conservative Central Office apologise too, because it is local Tory MP Henry Bellingham who is left to pick up the pieces. He says he was not consulted, and neither was the hospital concerned where bosses now have to reassure patients - surely these were both obvious sources for checking the accuracy of any threat of closure.

Let’s hope some important lessons have been learnt from these two examples about the importance of checking and double checking facts with the best sources, though I do sympathise with researchers who are under pressure to present their data quickly.

Update: Could someone please tell the BBC that King’s Lynn is in East Anglia and not the north-west.

And  Newsnight tonight will be highlighting claims from other hospitals which have also denied their services are under threat. If true, it is a nightmare scenario:

Politicians love to do battle over the NHS so is David Cameron right about hospital closures or is he wrong? Are a whole load about to close or not? The Conservatives have their list of the 29 at risk and David Cameron has been touring the country to offer them support. BUT today a member of his shadow team apologised to his local hospital saying that it was wrong that it was on the list. Since then many Trusts and hospitals on the list have also denied they are under threat. The truth? We’ll be trying to find out and testing both Labour and the Conservatives’ claims.

Suffolk Lib Dem peer Lord Andrew Philips made a citizen’s arrest on a boy believed to be 10-years-old yesterday for allegedly throwing his bike to the ground.

While I’m also fed up up with the lack of respect and yobbish anti social behaviour of some young people (a minority of our population because we have so many we should be proud of too), I do think Lord Philips went over the top here, particularly bearing in mind his background.

According to a report in today’s East Anglian Daily Times, Lord Philips asked a group of young lads to stop riding bikes on a narrow stretch of path on Market Hill in Sudbury, famed for being the birthplace of our great artist Thomas Gainsborough.

The boys’ response was lippy, resorting to foul language, and then one of the boys threw Lord Philips’ bike to the ground. So the peer grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck, who protested his innocence, while his friends told Lord Philips to “get off”. But he asked a passer-by to call the police, and an officer arrived within minutes.

What makes this particularly interesting is that Lord Philips has a legal background as a solicitor, so knows only too well how to apply the law. He has been on BBC Radio 2’s Jimmy Young Show as their “legal eagle. And in 1997 he was awarded the OBE for establishing the Citizenship Foundation, of which he is president, and for his work with young people and the law. So one assumes he is used to communicating with young people, and in challenging situations.

The Citizenship Foundation aims to empower individuals and young people to engage in the wider community through education about the law, democracy and society, focusing particularly on developing young people’s citizenship skills, knowledge and understanding. In fact, the foundation was recently awarded 100,000 Euros for its work to ‘anchor civic engagement within the educational experience’. I wonder why Lord Philips doesn’t try and engage these young lads with the ethos of citizenship, let them learn and benefit from his experience with the foundation’s support?

This is how Lord Philips recounted the experience:

“I first saw the youngsters biking along the narrow path from the Borehamgate Precinct and told them that they couldn’t ride there as it could be dangerous for young mums with prams.

“They swore at me but it was nothing more than small change from some silly boys. But when I saw them then throw my bike on the floor, I thought ‘I’m not having that’.

“This not just a problem in Sudbury, this is a problem everywhere although our town does have its fair and share of this type of behaviour and it is unacceptable. These boys were not wicked, they just need to realise there are rules you have to stick by.

“This was certainly not brave, it was just a small gesture towards a community standing up for itself and knowing you can’t leave it to the police.

“This kind of behaviour is something I feel very strongly about - you can’t just pass on by and hope things will get better. I think this highlights the absence of beat officers which is unhelpful to put it mildly.

What do you think about this? I would personally like to see special neighbourhood courts set up to deal with anti-social behaviour in local communities. Have you ever made a citizen’s arrest? I wonder whether Lord Philips simply got out of bed the wrong way yesterday.