Opinion, Watford Observer, 29 June 2025: Holding Labour accountable over Watford hospital 'delay' | Watford Observer
We should all be relieved the Conservative Government plan to rebuild Watford General Hospital has not been definitively killed off by the Labour government following the recent announcement that £11.86 million will be spent on site preparations and the ongoing work of the project team.
So we need to be thankful for small mercies.
But if Labour had not won the last election, construction would be underway and the new hospital would have been in operation by 2030. Sadly, we now just have to hope that work will start two years later in 2032.
It is a reminder of the old political saying that “to govern is to choose”. The Conservative government had chosen to rebuild the hospital by 2030; the Labour government chose to postpone the project so they could give large pay rises to their trade union mates driving trains etc. instead.
All grown-up, realistic political parties at least try to make hard choices to offer the electorate a serious and coherent policy platform. Not all opposition parties follow this line.
We now have not one but two ‘none of the above’ opposition parties that win votes by offering each voter what he or she wants to hear. So in May’s local elections Reform UK won votes in Cassiobury, for example, by telling residents they favour tax cuts while telling residents in, say, Garston they support more spending on welfare payments. This is their national policy. Their attitude seems to be, why make hard choices when there are votes at stake?
It is of course tempting to vote for parties who seem to be saying that we can have everything we want straight away. But government involves hard choices as we’ve seen in the debate about rebuilding our hospital. At least the Labour government and our MP Matt Turmaine have made a choice for which they can be held accountable at the next election.
Stephen Woodard
Chairman, Watford Conservatives
