Claire Ward, MP for Watford, has been caught out lying again. She has been pushing leaflets around the constituency claiming that the Conservatives would close Watford General Hospital, despite the opposite being the case.

Look at the two pieces of evidence below. One is Ward’s leaflet, and the other is a letter from Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, stating categorically that there is, was, and never has been any intention of doing that.

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This claim started when Mike Pennning, MP for Hemel Hempstead, talking about the closure of Hemel hospital said:

If we start from scratch for a hospital looking after three big areas, it wouldn’t be in the middle of either Watford, Hemel or St Albans. It needs to look after all three of these areas.

If. Big if. But they’re not going to, because Watford General is going to stay open. If Mike Penning was not going to try and fight the corner of his constituency, he wouldn’t be doing a very good job as an MP, would he?

What Labour and the Liberal Democrats have done is taken this quote massicely out of context and tried to use it to attack the Conservatives, despite Andrew Lansley having previously visited the hospital and made it very clear that it is here to stay. And yet Labour keep on lying about it, with even Health Secretary Andy Burnham getting in on the act.

The Conservatives have made it very clear: Watford General Hosipital is here to stay. Anything else is a lie, and doing nothing more than undermining politics and democracy in this country. Claire Ward should be ashamed of herself.

And let’s not forget her second-home expense claims!

The sooner she loses her seat the better.