David Ottewell's Politics

YouTube, WhyTube… whatever it’s called, it good to talk
Who would have thought John Prescott would be the first heavyweight British politician to really “get” the internet? But he is – he indisputably is. His blog is lively, opinionated, gossipy and full of personality. More importantly, he responds not only to commenters on his own blog, but to those on others, and in other parts of cyberspace like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
In short he is doing what other politicians promise but all too often fail to deliver. He is an active voice in the internet community.
Maybe it’s not so surprising after all. The internet – wild, untamed and often confrontational – is very much like old-fashioned soap-box politics. And John Prescott was, and remains, a master at that.
Anyway, I caught up with the former deputy prime minister ahead of a visit to Manchester this weekend (more on that later). Here are some highlights…
On his ‘cyberwar’ with Iain Dale over the authorship of his blog posts:
“He was trying to say it was not me because of the words I used… so I did a video presentation on that site… WhyTube, YouTube or whatever. I wanted people to know it was me. I don’t type every bloody word… but people can be assured it is me. It takes quite a lot of time. I am still trying to master the Blackberry. You get people to type it out for you. But everything is consistent with my style. I do do another job!”
On the point of his venture into cyberspace:
“With all the youth, you can’t just talk about 18 years of the Tories. Many of them were only just born. You have got to be talking in their style, with Facebook, Twitter… This is where they converse. You can’t simply talk down to them. You have to engage with them.”
On his Go Fourth campaign, and Gordon Brown:
“Go Fourth was launched at the Manchester conference when Gordon Brown was very much under attack. They were all moaning Minnies at that time… the bitterness, demanding a change of leadership or a change of policy – which really meant a change of leader. Gordon Brown has shown that he has got on top of the job.”
On journalists:
“I can say what I say but journalists, they will put out what they think is the story. I have never really got a fair crack of the whip.”

“When he came to the job, he had some hair.”
- Makerfield MP Ian McCartney, speaking in parliament about Labour colleague and local government minister John Healey

Andrew Stunell, MP for Hazel Grove, has been highlighting problems with the NHS Choose and Book system. This is described “a national electronic referral service which gives patients a choice of place, date and time for their first outpatient appointment in a hospital or clinic”.
Mr Stunell secured a parliamentary debate during which he outlined the experiences of a constituent, “Mr I”.
Here it is in full:
Mr I was first sent to choose and book on 19 July 2007, and first contacted me on 9 August 2007. Nine and a half months later, after much correspondence in many directions, he wrote to me again on 12 May 2008 and said:
“Me, I’m giving up but if you wish to carry on the saga be my guest!!!”
I suppose that the debate is me being Mr I’s guest. I spoke to him yesterday, and I can report that he received his treatment last month. For him, the saga that started with a doctor’s diagnosis in July 2007 has now been completed with treatment in January 2009.
As I said, Mr I is my worst case. What happened? On 19 July 2007, his general practitioner referred him to choose and book, gave him the telephone number, the address of the website and the password, and told him what to do. When he phoned the number, he was told that he should phone again because of a high volume of calls. He repeated that experience many times. He was referred to the website, but it did not respond to him.
He did what many patients do, much to the irritation of their doctors: in frustration, he went back to his GP, because he thought that he might have got the number or password wrong. Having established that they were correct – he had a letter of confirmation from the system in due course – he tried again. Once again he was told that he should try the website because of a high volume of calls.
He eventually got on to the website, but it told him that no bookings were available for the period he had chosen, and that he should try again and seek another date. He did not want to make it hard for choose and book, so he did not try to make an appointment for the week after; instead, he tried to make an appointment for three months after his first choice. Anyone who knows choose and book knows what that means. The system would not give him an appointment because the date he selected was beyond the 18-week period in which it will accept an appointment.
Mr I is articulate and persistent. After that trouble, he went to his GP for a third time. His GP said, “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you phone up NHS HealthSpace?” That sounded like something to do, so Mr I did it. What did it tell him? It told him that no appointments were available.
On 1 August, he got the first of his letters from Appointments Line criticising him for failing to book a choose and book appointment – that was when he first wrote to me. He told me that he wanted to tell Appointments Line that he had been trying to book, but he could not do so because the standard letter from Appointments Line has no address on it – he showed me a copy of the letter to prove it. The only way in which a patient can contact Appointments Line was by phoning the number that tells them that they cannot get through. It is absolutely ridiculous.
Health minister Ben Bradshaw did respond.
He said: “Clearly, the case as outlined by the honourable gentleman is unacceptable. It is difficult to know where the fault lies without hearing more details about individual cases, although it seems, from what he says, to lay mainly with the telephone booking service.
“I am informed by the PCT that it tried to contact the patient… mentioned to investigate his case, but did not receive any response, and that it further tried to contact the patient but was unsuccessful. However, in the last letter that the patient sent to the PCT, he stated that he did not wish to pursue the case further. Obviously, if there is still a problem relating to Mr I’s case – or with any of the other individual cases that the honourable gentleman raises – I should be happy to look into it.”