Howard flouts hospital cleanliness rules

Conservative leader Michael Howard faced embarrassment in London hospital on Tuesday when he failed to wash his hands between meeting patients.

A key strand of the Conservative campaign has been improving hospital cleanliness to tackle superbug MRSA. Its campaign slogans include: “I mean, how hard is it to keep a hospital clean?”

But at London’s National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery Mr Howard broke hospital rules by failing to wash his hands in between meeting patients.

“I was mortified when it was pointed out,” an embarrassed Mr Howard is quoted as saying by the Sun newspaper.