Other People's April Fools: Chorlton Fib Dems, You're Having A Laugh Aren't You? Taking The Proverbial

OBVIOUSLY Laugh Out Loud Labour of Love is hot to trot when it comes to April Fools' Jokes. One at least of our stories yesterday was a wind up. Can you see which one it is yet?

But receiving a double-sided A3 leaflet from an allegedly bona fide political party containing continued ridiculous HospitalHoax Denial was really going much too far.

Probably some people will get this on other days than Sunday 1 April and it is undated. So THEY WILL NOT REALISE that the WHOLE THING is a BIG JOKE ON THEM and not more LIB DEM LIES. It should say "Focus April Fools' Special" on the top.

This is how the BBC covered the story in April 2005 and these Lib Dems have used quotes from less balanced reports from the days immediately after the hoax was set in motion instead of those in the cool light of day.

They could acknowledge that they had stirred up a minor turf war, which would have been resolved in a few days, into a full scale panic. About a dearly loved hospital allegedly closing and needing saving when it never was. But they just keep on digging,

Their smirking photograph - which is not evident on their web sites - shows I feel that they knew all along that their jackanory story was complete rubbish. They knew from the start.

Using press quotes from two years ago to counter the calmer analysis of today is absolutely desperate and inexcusable.

Eighteen months ago Cllr John Leech MP and I had a short email correspondence around his Christie campaign.

Leech clearly realised that distributing propaganda in waiting areas of a hospital, reserved for vulnerable patients and their anxious relatives, where 95% plus of visitors are from other areas, and many are terminally ill was absolutely inexcusable. Even if the story of closure had not been a pack of lies and distortions.

John stated that he had not put the leaflets there himself. As if that is any excuse. But when asked who had and who had supplied them with those leaflets ON THE FIRST DAY after they were printed he was completely embarrassed and silenced.

This was never a hospital under threat of closure. So it was easy to "save" even for the most Junior Member of the House. "Achieved" within a week of his election. As if.

John Leech is in a hole and must stop digging and start owning up. The people of Manchester Withington have friends and relations working in this Hospital and at the University, I know I have, they may work there themselves; and of course most everybody knows an out-patient or two. We ALL know it was never true.

Messing with people's minds and lives like this has been totally unacceptable. It was wrong. And taking us for April Fools with a leaflet repeating long-found-out-lies is I'm sorry utterly contemptible.

This is not a closely contested story. It is a busted flush. Everyone knows it was untrue. The Lib Dems were terminally wrong, they upset even Leech's own staunchest supporters, and Leech and the Lib Dems were bound to be found out.

This is by no means the sole reason Labour lost a vast majority which had taken 18 years to build in just a couple of weeks. But it is one of the many shameful monkeys on Cllr Leech's back.

The truth will out. At least this leaflet, riddled with fibs as it was, did not rubbish our Bobbies, did not hoax about our cemetary, and did not claim that the moon was made of green cheese.

But it was one for April Fools Day that IS for sure.

This Cure For Cancers 'in Five Years', from just one week before Leech and Co launched their storm of crap, is the potential of The Christie and it has been all along.

POSTSCRIPT: LOL still don't know what claims were included in the leaflet that the Lib Dems INCINERATED rather than distributed. If anyone can help with that please drop me a line.