Tory MP hopeful slams Keep Our NHS Public photo exhibition

Amy Gray is standing for the Conservatives in Hackney North and Stoke Newington

A photo exhibition in a Hackney library about the ‘privatising of the NHS’ has been criticised by Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Hackney North.

The photo exhibition by Keep Our NHS Public campaigner Marion MacAlpine is a series of photos with accompanying captions that claims to show how the National Health Service is being increasingly taken over by the private sector.

Amy Gray, who is hoping to unseat the current incumbent MP Diane Abbott from her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat, condemned both the use of a public library for the ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ campaign exhibition and the content of the exhibition itself.

Ms Gray said: “It’s nonsense to say that the NHS is being privatised.

“This campaign group is scaremongering and Hackney Council has questions to answer about why they have hosted this exhibition in a public building like a library.

“This follows the misuse of patient data by similar campaign groups which contacted residents through their doctors’ surgeries, using personal contact details which are shared solely for health reasons.”

About the exhibition: the details on display at Hackney Central Library. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Controversial: the Keep Our NHS Public photo exhibition at Hackney Central Library. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Another view: From the comments book that visitors are invited to contribute to. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Visitors to the photo exhibition can leave their comments in a notebook provided by the organisers.

One such comment reads: “We forget that the Labour Government began the process of setting up the structure / means for the privatisation within the NHS – which the Tories are now forcing through unchecked…”

When quizzed by the Hackney Citizen as to who gave the go-ahead to the hosting of the exhibition in Hackney Central Library, a Town Hall spokesperson said it was “the Council” who had given the thumbs-up.

Defending the decision, Cllr Jonathan McShane, the Cabinet Member for Health Social Care and Culture said: “Hackney Central, like other libraries across the country is hosting an exhibition, for three weeks, about the NHS.

“It’s a photographic exhibition and like a lot of art it has a political dimension. Any views expressed are those of the artist and if it prompts debate that has to be a good thing.”

The exhibition at Hackney Central Library ends today, Saturday 28 February.

Hackney Keep Our NHS public has been asked by the Hackney Citizen for comment.