It has become a familiar message of the Labour Party locally that the NHS proposals “Shaping a healthier future” would constitute the closure of Charing Cross Hospital (or at least of its A&E department). It has also become a familiar message from the NHS that this allegation is false.

Bullying council staff into repeating a lie in an official council press release doesn’t make it true.

What was clear was that Labour offered an “early pledge” to “block” those proposals, if they won the council elections last May. They have not done so.

In the General Election campaign they will repackage their messages and say that Charing Cross Hospital is still under threat of closure but that (whoops a daisy) actually it turns out not to be a local council decision but that electing a Labour Government should do the trick.

Yet what are we to make of an article in the left wing journal Tribune from the Labour leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Cllr Stephen Cowan?

Cllr Cowan says:

“Labour needs to commit to smaller high profile changes in each part of the country, too – such as saving the world-class Charing Cross Hospital in London.”

That can only mean that – in the view of Cllr Cowan – Labour have yet to make any such commitment.