Slurs are no way to treat the sick

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Sometimes it seems as if there are two parallel worlds. There is the false, glitzy world inhabited by TV, politicians and the media. And there is the world of real people, with their hopes, their suffering, their joys and silent defeats. It can be very ugly indeed when these two worlds collide. And that is exactly what happened after Rose Addis was forced to wait 72 hours in Accident and Emergency at the Whittington Hospital for treatment for a gash on the head.

Ninety-four-year-old Mrs Addis - in common with two other people whose families have complained publicly about their reception at the Whittington - has since become the object of a vicious, Government-inspired smear campaign.

This mild-mannered old lady has seen herself traduced in the Press and condemned as a racist. She has been the subject of heavy innuendo that she refused care from nurses because they came from an ethnic minority. Her family have been forced to rush to her defence by pointing out that both her home carers are from ethnic minorities and that - as a Jew - she is from an ethnic minority herself. There is strong circumstantial evidence that Labour spin-doctors were involved in putting out these smears.

Then there is the case of Sidney Hockley, an 88-yearold man, who is said to have spent all of five days waiting around at the Whittington's A&E department. Late on Wednesday night Downing Street gratuitously revealed - in a loathsome attempt to protect the reputation of the Government - that Mr Hockley was incontinent.

Meanwhile, the family of James Scott-Faulkner, a 13-year-old boy, were denoun ced as serial liars in a long, detailed statement from Whittington Hospital. The boy's parents say that practically every single assertion in that Whittington statement is either a distortion or a fabrication.

Late yesterday a fresh stream of smears were aimed at all three families. Someone - it is not known who, but clearly a well-connected figure with an interest in discrediting their stories - planted the revolting rumour in several newspapers and broadcasting organisations that they had sought to profit from the sickness of their loved ones by selling their stories to the Evening Standard. The Guardian, the Sunday Times, Newsnight and the Daily Mail were among papers which rang the Evening Standard to check out a rumour which, needless to say, has no basis in truth of any kind.

One point, however, is beyond dispute. Ninety-four year old Mrs Addis, 88-yearold Sidney Hockley and 13-year-old James Scott-Faulkner have this week become the subject of classic Labour dirty tricks. To those of us who report politics such episodes are - normally - barely worthy of comment. Ken Livingstone was on the receiving end of a series of horrible Number 10-inspired slurs when Tony Blair wanted to stop him being mayor of London. Mo Mowlam got the same treatment-when her political enemieswanted her out of the Cabinet. They put it about that she was mad and had "lost it".

Mo Mowlam and Ken Livingstone are professional politicians who can take the rough with the smooth. The techniques that were used against them, while cheap and nasty, were arguably just part of the game of politics. After all, no bones were broken.

But what makes the events of this week so unique and so horrible is that three patients at the Whittington Hospital - all ordinary people, two pensioners and a schoolboy - should have received the identical treatment. Their only crime was to allow accounts of their stay in hospital to go to the newspapers. There is only one way of describing the spin-doctors who worked their evil arts this week - vile, contemptible and disgusting.

How can New Labour have chosen to behave in this way? As is often the case with the Government, its aims were at least partly honourable. There is no reason to doubt the determination of Alan Milburn to produce a health service we can all be proud of. I know in particular how strongly he feels that it is always possible to find a few cases of bad practice, while thousands of saved lives go unthanked and unnoticed. He is right about that. And I can personally testify that this rule applies at the Whittington as everywhere else. It is my local hospital, too. Last year we took one of our children to the Whittington with a case of suspected meningitis like James Scott-Faulkner's, which mercifully turned out to be a false alarm. The hospital was superb. It is not possible to praise the profession alism of the always overworked staff enough.

So Alan Milburn and Tony Blair were right to defend the hard-working doctors and nurses at the NHS. The Government was right to warn that the tactic adopted by Iain Duncan Smith at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday was dangerous and misleading (even though it should be borne in mind that New Labour did just the same thing to superb effect when it was in opposition). Furthermore, they should have checked the facts with the Whittington before going public.

But none of the above can alter the fact that the Government behaved abominably this week. It was Alan Milburn, not Iain Duncan Smith, who first put the case of Mrs Addis in the political arena when he described her story as a "fiction". It was 10 Downing Street which, in an act of incredible arrogance, publicised personal details of NHS patients to the public.

Alan Milburn and Tony Blair made one unforgivable mistake. In the false, odious and shoddy parallel world of Westminster and the media, there are combatants and civilians. And Mrs Addis, Sidney Hockley and James Scott-Faulkner are most emphatically civilians.

?Peter Oborne is political editor of The Spectator. He is also Alastair Campbell's biographer.