East End GP Dr Kambiz Boomla is standing against health secretary Alan Milburn's parliamentary private secretary, Jim Fitzpatrick, in Poplar and Canning Town, where the Labour majority is 18,915.

The Socialist Alliance candidate says: 'When Labour was elected, we felt there would be a number of changes - GPs and patients thought so. The Tory policy of privatisation would end and there would be substantial new spending.'

But 'over the whole four-year period there hasn't really been a change in the overall amount', and there has been 'no relenting on the private finance policy'.

He is particularly critical of NHS LIFT, the public-private scheme for providing GP premises. These will be 'owned and managed by the private sector - on a for-profit basis, presumably, given they are private companies - and leased back to the NHS'.

Dr Boomla says: 'That is the personal reason I feel Labour is no longer following Bevan's agenda.'

Also standing:

Candy Udwin, Unison branch secretary at University College London Hospitals trust, is challenging former health secretary Frank Dobson in Holborn and St Pancras. She aims to dent his 17,903 majority.

In the London Assembly elections she stood against UCLH human resources director Helen Gordon and took 3,488 votes, while Labour's Ms Gordon lost the seat by 551.

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