Coming full circle, the Guardian's Parliamentary sketchwriter, Simon Hoggart, writes about Martin Linton asking Tony Blair about Polly Toynbee's Guardian article.
News: November 2006 Archives
Writing in The Guardian, Polly Toynbee says that the Labour Party are losing the support of medical professionals by ignoring local campaigns to prevent hospital closures. One of her examples is the Bolingbroke Hospital in Wandworth which is the process of being closed down and replaced by a newer facility against the protests of the staff, local people and the (Tory) council. Toynbee mentions Martin Linton when discussin the political issues:
The hospital is in the constituency of Battersea, one of London's most marginal, where the Labour MP Martin Linton hangs on by a whisker. It is to his great credit that he has not succumbed to John Reidism: despite the cacophony of the local council's foghorn campaign, he is trying to explain why the services should be decanted to the new, better clinic. (He is also campaigning for a new community hospital down at the poor end of his patch.) Wandsworth Conservatives naturally hope the issue will unseat Linton at the next election: their disingenuousness is breathtaking, for Wandsworth is the council famous for selling off just about everything, from blocks of flats to two popular schools (instead of less popular ones, because the latter were on less profitable sites). If the Bolingbroke had belonged to them, they'd have sold it years ago.
According to the Wimbledon Guardian, green campaigners are urging politicians in Wandsworth to do more to help people live greener lives. Martin Linton thinks that Wandsworth residents are already ahead of the curve. He is quoted as saying:
People are beginning to accept there's more to be done to deal with the problems of climate change. I find people are more interested in green issues than those in the rest of the country. We may not be pioneers, but we are ahead of the game and we are prepared to make lifestyle changes
Terrible punning from the Wimbledon Guardian in a story reporting that South West Trains are considering removing the toilets from some of their trains in order to make more space for passengers. Martin Linton is quoted as being generally in favour of the move. He says:
The biggest problem for people in this area is actually getting on the train.
The trains are so overcrowded that people have fainted and had panic attacks on them, so I support everything SWT is trying to do to create more capacity.
It's unlikely people are going to need the toilet during the short journey to Waterloo.
