David Cameron attacks post office closures

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ost107.xml

David Cameron today attacks "hypocritical" ministers planning to close down thousands of post offices across the country.

The Conservative leader, writing for The Daily Telegraph, accuses the Government of ignoring alternatives to closure and pushing ahead with its plans despite the harm it will do to many communities.

The Government says that the proposals to close 2,500 branches in Britain are necessary to preserve the post office network's £150 million-a-year subsidy and cut its estimated losses of £4 million a week.

However, the plans have caused dismay, especially in rural areas where post offices are often the cornerstones of small communities.

Earlier this week, Gordon Brown's own adviser on rural affairs warned him that the plans have caused real anxiety among many people living in the countryside.

"Post offices often provide the only community service in rural areas and the strength of public protest against closures is being ignored by this Government," Mr Cameron writes.


Last week The Daily Telegraph reported on the Cabinet ministers who supported the post office policy but have been campaigning against closures in their own constituencies.

Mr Cameron calls that "blatant double-standards" and says it further undermines the closure process.

"If the Cabinet don't support it then why should the British people?"

The Tory leader will today highlight the fight against closures at an event in his Whitney constituency.

Stanmore Crescent post office in Carterton, Oxfordshire, which serves the RAF base at Brize Norton, is used by many Armed Forces families to send letters and parcels to relatives deployed overseas.

Under the Government's plans, it faces closure.

Mr Cameron says: "This is bewildering behaviour from a Government that claims to stand by and support our Armed Forces on the one hand, but is taking away a vital lifeline to their families with the other."

Instead of simply closing post offices, Mr Cameron says that ministers and the Post Office should explore low-cost alternatives, based on voluntary and community participation.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do0708.xml

Today I am spending the afternoon in my constituency in West Oxfordshire visiting Post Offices that are threatened with closure. Conservatives all over the country have been campaigning against these unnecessary changes.

Post Offices provide much needed services for millions of vulnerable people in this country, particularly the elderly, and Labour has been closing almost 10 a week since 1997. Post Offices often provide the only community service in rural areas and the strength of public protest against closures is being ignored by this Government.

Stanmore Crescent Post Office in Carterton is a bastion of the local community. It serves the RAF base at Brize Norton and provides an essential service to hundreds of forces' families, enabling them to send letters and packages to their loved ones serving overseas. So why is the Government planning to shut it down? This is bewildering behaviour from a Government that claims to stand by and support our Armed Forces on the one hand, but is taking away a vital lifeline to their families with the other.

Last week the Telegraph reported on the Labour Cabinet ministers who supported the Post Office closure policy but have been campaigning against closures in their own constituencies. These blatant double-standards undermine the process of the policy even further - if the Cabinet don't support it then why should the British people?

My party is fighting to save Post Offices across the country. Gordon Brown's decisions have left the Post Office to survive on a set subsidy rather than freeing it to make sensible business decisions which would allow the individual branches to flourish. They seem happy to simply manage the decline of the Post Office network.

Conservatives at both a national and a local level have been campaigning hard against the closure programme. We have promised to end the iniquity of profitable post offices being forced to close. We have also been talking to sub-Postmasters who are telling us they want to find ways of bringing new business into the network.

Labour has consistently removed services such as benefits payments, road tax and TV licence applications from post offices. Where there is a sensible argument for spending public money more efficiently by providing services by other means, we will support that. We would also like to see Post Offices able to use carriers other than Royal Mail if it were sensible and cost-effective to do so.

However, it is astonishing that neither the Government nor the Post Office itself has indicated a willingness to find low cost alternatives to present sub post offices, based on voluntary and community participation. This is just one of the issues that I will be raising on my visits this afternoon.

I look forward to fighting against local closures alongside my constituents and we will continue to expose the hypocrisy of this Labour Government's actions.

[norbert]

It's by a POL Senior Manager and it makes some good points .( Sharmian in Barbados Ex Pat )