By Councillor Suzanne Evans

I had to laugh at Sally Kenny's letter.

Siobhain McDonagh MP really is the mistress of deception: she organises a ‘public’ meeting to which only Labour councillors are invited and then asks any Conservative Councillors present to stand up at the meeting so she can highlight their ‘lack of concern’!

Instead of working on a cross-party basis to actually support the Save St Helier campaign, she and the Merton Labour Party have used the whole sorry saga as a political football.

Merton Conservatives, meanwhile, have stayed focused on trying to save our much-loved local hospital.

I have repeatedly put the St Helier issue on the agenda of my scrutiny panel and have picked apart BSBV’s arguments at regular meetings of the specially convened South-West London scrutiny panel.

We have campaigned on the streets, organised public meetings, written letters,  issued press releases and lobbied hard behind the scenes.

Next month Stephen Hammond MP and I will meet health minister, Anna Soubry, to raise the issue at the heart of Government.

Meanwhile, Siobhain McDonagh hasn’t even bothered to meet with Merton Clinical Commissioning Group, who will take over responsibility for BSBV at the end of March.

So, the short answer to Sally’s question, "Where were Conservative Councillors?" is this: while Siobhain McDonagh was giving a master-class in shameless self-promotion, we were actually doing something for St Helier.

Councillor Evans is Merton Conservatives' health spokeswoman and represents Hillside ward in Wimbledon.

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