Lord Greaves column

WE didn't reach the pay-as-you-throw proposals in the Climate Change Bill last week and it may now be next Wednesday before we discuss them.

Meanwhile, I had my 30 seconds of excitement on Sunday in a live appearance on the Politics Show.

I always wonder whether it's worth the three hours it takes to get from Colne to the BBC in Manchester and back - and that's on a Sunday with not much traffic.

But what is happening at the hospitals in Blackburn and Burnley, the sheer shocking shambles of it all - it's worth travelling to the ends of the earth to tell people.

I've not known such an upswell of anger here since Mrs Thatcher's government imposed the poll tax 18 years ago.

We are not apologising that as Liberal Democrat councillors and office-holders we are running a combined campaign across the six East Lancashire Boroughs.

But it's not just a Liberal campaign - everyone is welcome to join in and we say - please do so.

It's the patients who are suffering.

Operations are being cancelled at the last minute, there are huge problems in getting to the Royal Blackburn Hospital, people are being discharged in disgraceful circumstances, patients are being shunted from ward to ward in the desperate search for beds (and in some cases being lost), a general air of shambles, and staff are at their wits' end.

And it's the staff who are in the front line, knowing that the service they are providing is all too often not acceptable and distressed that they cannot do anything about it.

So I hope that the Health Minister Ivan Lewis who was also on the Politics Show will go to London this week and ask some very searching questions.

For my part I am putting down a couple of what I hope will be searching questions in the Lords.

This is a campaign that must not be allowed to fail. In the short run we just want less chaos.

We want an independent investigation.

And then we want our hospital back.