UoL prof sparks outrage over controversial comments

UoL Doctor sparks furore over comments made about former Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher.

| UPDATED

A Labour supporter working for the University of Liverpool has triggered a nationwide debate following his controversial statements about Margaret Thatcher.

In a recent article in the International Journal of Health Services, Dr Alex Scott-Samuel said Thatcher’s policies had been to the degradation of the health of British people and caused “unjust premature death”.

The paper concluded that successive Conservative and Labour governments have carried on with the damaging practices.

Dr Scott-Samuel – everyone loves a selfie

Figures from the World Health Organisation and the Office for National Statistics were used to claim that the increase in the rates of violence, alcohol, suicide and drug-related deaths were due to the inequality caused by Thatcher’s policies.

Dr Scott-Samuel is Director of the Liverpool Public Health Observatory, which is run by the University of Liverpool’s Department of Public Health and Society.

He recently spoke at the Labour conference in 2012, the cause of much of the controversy. Back then, he told the audience: “It’s absolutely clear that the Tory government is hell-bent on destroying the NHS”.

Jeremy Hunt is the Conservative minister in charge of the NHS.

Following the recent criticism, he is still supporting his claims and says “I am 100 per cent saying that Margaret Thatcher’s policies killed people.”

He went even further, going on to say “Thatcher and her ideological colleagues were really waging a war on the working class. This resulted in an enormous amount of suffering.”

Thatcher died last year, which prompted debate about her legacy. Tory supporters claimed she was a model Prime Minister and David Cameron himself said that she “saved our country”.

Opposition to her has always been vicious, with communities across Britain devastated by her war with the unions and public services.

Tory opponents to his comments say that the paper is merely  “socialist propoaganda dressed up as academic research”.

Want to write for our News section? Join our Facebook group.