http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/p ... 338052.ece
Even a postbag bulging with heartfelt appeals cannot save them
The sub-postmaster paid little attention to the quiet Scotsman buying a book of stamps in North London a few weeks ago. He should have been more attentive: that was the last time that Pat McFadden used his local post office and, if he has his way, it could be the last time he will ever use it. In the next two weeks the Employment Relations Minister’s massive programme of post office closures moves in on London.
Mr McFadden has been given one of the worst jobs in government: wiping out post offices. Few institutions are prized more highly by traditionalists than the local purveyor of Giro checks, brown envelopes and gossip about her down the road; a noble British tradition that dates back to Henry VIII, via Anthony Trollope and W.H. Auden. His own postbag bulges with heartfelt appeals on behalf of the village post office: one in five will close this year. The strength of feeling is not really about stamps but more about community, fear of change and respect for the old.
Now Mr McFadden has to take the fight to a new battleground: the city. Amid the gnashing of dentures and rending of Barbours that has accompanied the departure of the rural post office, this part of the government deal has been overlooked. The Post Office is due to earmark 150-200 of the capital’s post offices for the chop, among 2,500 nationwide. Surprisingly, the urban kind is just as inviable as its country cousin. “No one comes into politics to do something that can be very unpopular locally to the people affected, and I am very aware of that,â€