Phil Hammond qualified as a doctor in 1987, became a GP in 1991 and currently works as a clinical assistant in sexual health medicine.

He has written Private Eye's medical column, Doing the Rounds, since 1992, and was first to highlight the disastrous state of child heart surgery in Bristol in the early Nineties.

He has yet to be struck off but was reported to the GMC by William Hague's Press Secretary. He stood for Struck Off and Die Doctor's Alliance in Bristol West in 1992 General Election.