Brown offered Fiona Phillips a ministerial job

[Maldini]

http://www.telegraph...-job-offer.html

 

 

 

Fiona Phillips, the television presenter, has confirmed that she was offered a ministerial job by Gordon Brown, suggesting she was also offered a peerage.

 

 

 

 

The GMTV host has told how she turned down the offer of the post of public health minister because of her two very young children.

 

When it was first suggested last weekend that Miss Phillips had been offered a place in the Government, No 10 sources sought to play down the story.

 

However, it is understood that Miss Phillips was irritated at Downing Street's response and has decided to go public with the offer.

 

The TV presenter has written about it in her regular column for a tabloid newspaper this morning, in which she appeared in a mocked-up photograph wearing a peer's ceremonial robes.

 

The column was taglined "start the weekend with the baroness of British TV".

 

When claims of the job offer originally surfaced Mr Brown's officials insisted that he had talked about Miss Phillips leading a Government campaign on healthy eating, much as the TV psychologist Dr Tanya Byron is leading a Government inquiry into protecting children from violent computer games.

 

The Prime Minister's appointment of Dr Byron and his talks with Miss Phillips were part of his attempts to build a "government of all talents".

 

He has also given ministerial jobs to Adml Lord West, a former Navy chief, Digby, Lord Jones, the former CBI leader, and Lord Darzai, a celebrated surgeon.

 

Mr Brown's attempt to include a TV presenter in his Government appears at odds with some of the pledges he made before he took office in June.

 

Supporters of Mr Brown frequently criticised Tony Blair's fondness for show business and his courting of famous media figures.

 

 

 

 

 

This incidentally was written by her today...staggering

 

http://www.mirror.co...15875-22005783/

 

 

 

 

Surprise, surprise, the doctor who highlighted a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism has been found guilty of a series of misconduct charges.

 

Well, Dr Andrew Wakefield didn't stand a chance, did he? Not up against the might of the medical profession.

 

He has been branded dishonest, irresponsible and that he showed a "callous disregard" for the suffering of children.

 

Odd, then, that he now continues to work in the field of autism in Texas, where he set up Thoughtful House, a non-profit autism centre.

 

His passion for the subject, and refusal to abandon children with autism to a life of respite care and pity, earns him plaudits from parents grateful for his work.

 

His aim, he says, is still "to provide the best possible treatment for these children and to conduct research in order to ensure continuing improvements in the quality of treatment available".

 

The General Medical Council (GMC) verdict, which ruled that Wakefield and two eminent colleagues, Professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, had acted unethically, did not investigate whether Dr Wakefield's findings regarding a possible link between MMR and autism were right or wrong.

 

It focused on the methods of research used, some of which were undoubtedly questionable, but which were performed in the name of finding solace for desperate parents convinced their children had changed for ever following their one-size-fits-all MMR injection.

 

Dr Wakefield has said the findings were "unfounded and unjust" - and he was backed by parents who, rather than thinking him to be dishonest and irresponsible, actually consider him to be a hero who might eventually guide them out of a long, dark tunnel of despair and disbelief.

 

In court after the verdicts were read, one woman shouted: "These doctors have not failed our children.

 

You are outrageous!" And outside another said: "They were just trying to protect our children."

 

For hundreds of parents like these, the thought that the GMC may now strike Dr Wakefield and his colleagues off the medical register will amount to a light being switched off in what is, for them, an already bleak world.

[Cam]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[Maldini]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[johngibo YPC]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[Cam]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[Spion kop]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here