How did Labour know where to aim its cancer-scare mailshot?

Gordon Brown’s latest campaign slogan — ‘Vote Labour or Die of Cancer’ — has a certain apocalyptic vigour about it, don’t you think, even if it was implied rather than directly stated? The party sent out 250,000 ‘postcards’ to women, although they were not the sort of postcards you get when your Aunt Jemima’s been on holiday in Lyme Regis for the week. The gist was: if the Tories get in they’ll stop your chemo, you mug. Or you won’t get treated at all, in time, and you’ll probably die. This caused a small furore — we’ll come to why the furore was a muted furore, rather than a howl of complaint, in time. Most of the people who admitted receiving this missive were outraged, disgusted and so on, and said so. The suggestion seems to be that a good few who received the card would — au contraire, Mr Brown — rather die of cancer than vote Labour, or at least it would be a very close call.

The story originated in the Sunday Times but one crucial question remains: how were the 250,000 women targeted? Almost, but not quite all, of those who have reported receiving the leaflet have been diagnosed as suffering from cancer, in most cases breast cancer. The leaflet was about breast cancer care on the NHS under Labour and the letters, or postcards, were addressed to specific individuals. The implication is that Labour had somehow targeted women who were thus stricken, which everybody — including, in public, Labour — agrees is a sick and repulsive means of political campaigning. Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, denied that the party had made use of medical records or health profiles for its mailshot, and there have been similar denials from the party’s press office. But they have been very cautious denials, denials which lack explanation — and I am not sure that I believe them.