related to the NHS operation etc, question below

[Loosehead]

This being election year and all that obviosly this kind of thing becomes politically relevant, anyway when reporting it the political pundits, referred to a past case where the Labour party had used the example of a little girls ear operation in their party political broadcast in 1992. The Tories where able to dig up some information which blew a hole in the point that labour where making. I vaguely remember the story but I cannot remember the detail, ie what was the ear problem and what did the Tories come up with that embarrassed Labour? Anyone remember the detail? Cheers

[Hgrove]

I remember it was called The glue in Jennifer's ear, but I don't remember the Tories blowing any hole in the story.  What I do remember is that whereas the father was Labour, the mother and maternal grandfather were staunch Tories and furious that the story was used in this way.  The parents ended up divorcing.  However, to the best of my recollection, that was a real case of NHS shortcomings leaving this little case stranded.

[bernardo]

The condition was glue ear, i.e. a build-up of mucus in the inner ear which usually drains into the nasal canal, and which is relieved by the insertion of a gromit (a small hole in the eardrum to allow the mucus to drain away and dry up).  The main part of the political controversy was that the Labour Party made a generalised point about a fictional case which was only loosely based on the real case of Jennifer, and which did not exactly match the facts of the individual case.  Also, the parents of the girl were Conservative voters, and were unhappy about how their experience had been manipulated for political purposes.

[luckyboy]

And it did not do labour any good it lost that election...

i'm always wary of political stunts... this margaret woman i bet is a tory supporter, and likewise when the campaign starts there will be other incidents like this, engineered by both sides...its all part of this childish pathetic labour/ tory namecalling.. it gets us all to think that there are massive differences between the two parties when in truth theres very little between them.these days...