Shadow Health Minister Rosena Allin-Khan had to delete the tweet in the early hours of yesterday morning after sharing a fabricated rumour that vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi secretly received vaccines for himself and his family in Wandsworth this weekend. Zahawi had not received the vaccine. At the same time, the handful of Labour MPs who shared the fake news also deleted their tweets. Barbara Keeley, Karl Turner, and former Leigh MP Jo Platt had joined in the unsubstantiated pile on…

Sharing any information about a patient is bad enough. That Allin-Khan, a registered doctor who works at the Wandsworth hospital in her story, amplified this untrue rumour, makes it even worse. The General Medical Council does not tend to look favourably upon doctors who go around sharing rumours they hear about their own hospital’s supposed patients…

Dr Allin-Khan then tweeted and subsequently deleted a half hearted apology. No doubt LOTO was not impressed with its tone…

“I’ve deleted my previous tweet to Nadhim Zahawi as I understand that people were seeing it as a pile on, which was absolutely not my intention, and for that I apologise. I await a prompt response to the email I sent him about the matter which I hope is answered in good time.”

Eventually a real apology came about at 1:08 AM yesterday morning:

.Thank you for apologising, the accusation was not true. It is sad you chose to act like this, we all need to work together to beat this awful disease.

— Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) January 3, 2021

Strangely, the gaggle of Labour MPs who were so keen to jump on the made up rumour about Nadhim Zahawi have been totally silent about an MP who did jump the queue. Birmingham Labour MP (and Shadow Procurement Minister) Khalid Mahmood procured himself a Coronavirus vaccine at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital early last week, despite being only 59 years old, and not being eligible for a vaccine until the spring. Mahmood boasted to his constituents that:

“It’s not very well known, but at the end of the day any vaccine unused because people have not turned up for their appointments is made available at the QE vaccination hub – we can’t afford to waste any vaccine doses. I joined a queue at about 3pm and got a vaccine.”

Those who run the hospital, however have condemned the action, saying the end of day doses for the public, especially without an appointment, and the queue Mahmood joined was for NHS staff who were encouraged to take unused spots at the end of the day. A local source tells Guido that a doctor tipped Mahmood off about the queue, after which the Labour MP headed to the hospital and “just hung around waiting for it.” No doubt Dr Rosena and her colleagues had simply not heard about this news…