The fight is over.......

Councillors words over the giving up on the saving of a local hospital many years ago come back to haunt him, after further claims of the councillors "hypocrisy" emerge....

Saturday 3rd December 2022

More political turmoil for a Hartlepool Councillor after documents unearthed from a meeting back in 2007 shows the Labour Councillor for Hartlepool DID state on record that the fight for Hartlepool Hospital “was over”, despite now claiming to be campaigning for more funding & for more hospital services to return.

A Hartlepool Councillors words have once again come back to haunt him dearly, when some Hartlepool councillors yesterday accused the Labour Party of once again trying to "re-write history" when a councillors bid to defend the areas local hospital brought back some painful political memories that were only found to have been recorded on paper for public record & labour once again thinking the Hartlepool public had simply forgotten about them

Hartlepool Labour Party’s candidate to stand in the next general election & current serving ward councillor Jonathan Brash was reportedly again caught out by the most devastating dose of Labour hypocrisy, when Mr Brash previously caught the attention of the national press over his stance on private schools being able to obtain charitable status to gain generous tax breaks, only to find Mr Brash himself is in fact employed as a teacher at a private school in Yarm Stockton on Tees.

But if that wasn’t bad enough, the saga then caused Mr Brash’s political past to be unearthed even further, re-igniting the debate over the controversial decision to close Hartlepool’s hospital, where even today, the University Hospital of Hartlepool has considerably less services than the hospital has for its capacity, with the majority of its services including Accident & Emergency services all salami sliced away & commissioned from a hospital 12 miles away from the town at nearby North Tees Hospital.

Mr Brash, who's now supposedly a fierce campaigner of further investment in Hartlepool Hospital as well as the return of areas Accident & Emergency services is one of such that Labour knows jumping on such a bandwagon would be a political “winner” in the eyes of the voting public.

However in documents unearthed in a full council meeting held on the 25th October 2007, Mr Brash then acting as the chair of the councils now dissolved Audit & Community Services Health Scrutiny Forum actually stated on public record that the fight to save Hartlepool Hospital “was over”, a statement which effectively sealed the hospitals future fate to see the vast majority of its services wound down & commissioned from another local NHS Trust never to return. .

At the full council meeting held back in 2007, Councillor Geoff Lilley queried if Mr Brash’s statement “to fight to save the hospital is a lost cause”, asking whether this was his personal view, or was this the view of the Labour Group in general.”

In response, Councillor Brash stated that scrutiny forums were non-political arenas and clarified that his comments in a recent scrutiny meeting which Mr Brash Chaired that “the fight to save the hospital was over”……

In at attempt to verify the accuracy of the statement Mr Brash had given, Hartlepool Matters undertook some investigation into the claims published by the Conservatives recently in a post they published to their official social media page, with Hartlepool Matters also aware that another media outlet “Hartlepool TV” had also previously referred to the minutes of such a meeting in a video published some years ago.

Hartlepool Matters understands that following the tragic death of Hartlepool TV’s co owner Steve Gooderham, the video referring to that document has sadly vanished….

However, that didn’t stop us from doing some detective work of our own, as understandably some local residents wanted proof that the statement from Mr Brash was indeed spoken from the Labour councillor himself.

Looking through the minutes of the archived meetings of the now defunct committees going back to 2007, its reassuring to know that despite Hartlepool Borough Councils many failings, record keeping of meetings from such years ago is still readily & reassuringly accessible, however despite a lengthy search, we were unable to pull the actual minutes of the meeting onto which the statement referred to by the Hartlepool Conservatives in their most recent post….

It turns out, we were “warm”, but sadly looking in the wrong place, where it was then decided to widen our search to look at the councils full meetings in the hopes that the statement would be found, as there was a high degree of likelihood that the supplementary question the conservatives referred to in their post would have likely been put before a full council meeting & NOT one that had just a few councillors present.

Extract of the minutes of the meeting onto which Cllr Brash did claim "the fight for Hartlepool Hospital was over"

On the 25th October 2007, & as reported in the councils archives, a full council meeting was convened where it was confirmed via actual evidence that Councillor G Lilley had posted a supplementary question to the Labour Councillor & the document DOES make reference to the closure of the local hospital where it states the following….

In a supplementary question, Councillor G Lilley queried if his statement “to fight to save the hospital is a lost cause” was this his view or that of the Labour Group.” ?

In response Councillor Brash stated that scrutiny forums are non-political arenas and clarified that his comments in a recent scrutiny meeting were “the fight to save the hospital was over”. Councillor Brash referred to the petition signed on the Prime Minister’s website to which a response had recently been published, an extract of which was provided.

Cllr Brash had therefore “clarified” his comment that the fight for the Hartlepool Hospital “was over” & that the councillor who’d seemingly given up on the fight to save Hartlepool’s hospital services has now himself seemingly had one monumental change of heart in that the services he effectively seen wound down because he believed "the fight was over”

A councillor & parliamentary candidate to stand as Hartlepool's next MP who's now seemingly campaigning for funding for Hartlepool's hospital services to return, a fight he once claimed was supposedly "over"....

You cant argue with history..... or cold hard evidence !,

Cllr Brash all but gave up on the saving of our local hospital back in 2007, but now as his political ambitions come raising to the surface he now seemingly wants to save it !

Same old Labour !

Statement is on page 7 of the councils own recorded document & can be viewed on the link provided....

https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/762/council