The Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday how the "smutty" Keep Worthing and Southlands Hospitals campaign calendar - launched in February - was "offensive" to nurses and quoted an unnamed Worthing local saying local Tories had "hijacked" the hospital campaign.

But the Herald reported the launch in our editions back on February 15 and 22, and featured letters supporting - and against - the calendar in the following weeks.


Click here to see the original story online.

Janet Harmer, who described herself as "a naughty nursing assistant" from Belmont Walk, wrote in March that the MPs could run around Homefield Park naked if it meant saving the hospital and said she didn't have anything against "so-called Benny Hill humour".

She was responding to Angela Stamp, a retired nurse and midwife, who had written the previous week "No doubt those responsible for the calendar will claim it is 'just a bit of fun', but to hard-working, highly trained professionals it is deeply offensive."

One anonymous writer said: "Perhaps every nurse and woman in the Worthing and Shoreham area should buy the calendar to help KWASH – and then destroy it."

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Bottomley, MP for Worthing West, said: "The calendar was launched more than six months ago by a group of community people in Worthing who asked the local MPs to join in. It was one of many community events and generally appreciated."

He rejected angrily the allegation the campaign had been hijacked by the Tory party and pointed to the roles of Surrey Labour candidate Dr Neeraj Patil and Lib Dem Dr James Walsh in spearheading the cross-party fight against downgrading the hospital.

Mr Bottomley also dismissed the article as being politically motivated, with the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool this week and the threat of an autumn general election looming, claiming it was simply "A rare example of incompetence. These things happen."

He added: "I think it's a great shame, six months after the calendar came out, the Mirror didn't choose to look at the Worthing Herald website, where prominence is given to what local people think."