Top academic at centre of a new spin row

A leading academic last night spoke of a New Labour smear campaign in which she has suffered personal attacks and professional threats for years.

Professor Allyson Pollock, chair of the Health Policy and Health Services Research Unit at University College London, has told friends there has been a concerted attempt to undermine her to take the sting out of her criticisms of the use of private companies in healthcare provision.

Ministers and Labour special advisers are understood to have felt threatened by her "unhelpful" analysis of the economics of the Private Finance Initiative.

But instead of challenging her arguments they resorted to attacks on Professor Pollock herself, threatening her career and her research funding.

This tactic was seen most recently in the decision of three Labour members of the Health Select Committee, led by the Blairite MP Julia Drown, to include criticism of the work of the unit in a report into healthcare.

Ms Drown has been described by fellow committee members as "principled", someone who would not do the bidding of the party leadership. But she insisted, against the wishes of the committee chairman David Hinchliffe, that the paragraphs were included in which Professor Pollock's unit was accused of producing work with a "lack of sound analysis", containing "antagonistic extreme views". They even said the evidence given was in part "untrue".

"Not only are these things deeply personal but there is no evidence to support the allegations being made," Professor Pollock has told friends.

This is not the first time, however, that she and her work have been attacked. Friends say she claims she has been the victim of a "sustained and personal attack".

They maintain there are clear parallels with the treatment of Gwyneth Dunwoody, the Transport Select Committee chair, who last week complained of a smear campaign against her, and of others who allege the Government, rather than responding with arguments of its own, simply resorts to behind-the-scenes smear tactics against its critics.

Already two Labour MPs have written to the UCL council to complain about Professor Pollock's unit.

The academic community is rallying behind Professor Pollock. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph yesterday more than a dozen professors demanded the Health Select Committee withdraw the offending paragraphs. They warned: "This will undoubtedly deter other researchers from acting as expert witnesses to select committees in future, especially if their findings do not accord with prevailing government policies."

There is growing unease in the academic world at New Labour's alleged determination to "confuse academia and criticism of government policy with a party political campaign or agenda". Such an attitude could, it is feared, put academic freedom in jeopardy because no funds are available for work that might be politically controversial and "on top of that you have to put up with smear and libel".