Deluded or just an idiot?

Patricia Hewitt has yet again been rather generous with the truth in the House of Commons. This afternoon she tried to deflect attention away from herself, the government and her useless department by blaming other people for the MTAS disasters. This is wholly unacceptable for a minister; she does seem to be developing a bit of a penchant for this kind of behaviour though.

She stretched the truth to pretend that the MTAS security breach only affected one group of applicants, when it affected all MTAS applicants. She tried to pin the blame for the 'leak' on an individual in an attempt to cover the systematic incompetence of MTAS. She again tried to propagate her myth of there being a widespread agreement that MMC is great, would she like to read the Lancet? She also tried to pin the enitrety of the blame on Methods Consulting, the company behind MTAS, despite the fact that she had already reassured Andrew Lansley at the end of March that there was nothing to worry about:

'The performance of the service, the details of which I have already shared with you clearly do not warrant the criticisms'

She turned out to be very wrong here. Last but certainly not least she tried to pin some blame on Channel 4 news, as always Patricia had a quite unique take on things; luckily Dr Crippen has catalogued exactly what went on that day. It is no wonder that doctors tipped off the media, as they have zero trust in the establishment and their ability to deal openly and honestly with these kind of problems. I cannot comment on what the ferret fancier was up to on the afternoon in question.

I could bore you with more detail of her dishonesty and incompetence, however I'm sure you won't need any more convincing. I don't think John Snow and Channel 4 will let this lie. It amuses me that in the eyes of Patricia Hewitt everyone is to blame but her, her department and the government. Either she is deluded and has started to believe her own propaganda, or she really is so stupid that she thinks she can get away with this disingenuous game. Either way she should resign.

I also just wonder whether there are echoes of the Gilligan affair here, are Hewitt's comments regarding Channel 4 a deliberate attempt to intimidate the media? She certainly does not have the courage to face those that she is so keen to accuse; she has withdrawn from an interview on Channel 4 news this week despite promises that she would attend.

(Dr Grumble expertly points out that these security issues are hardly an one off, there were significant problems for weeks and weeks before things came to a head.)