Post offices: we killed them

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 701866.ece

Everybody seems to want to save them. But get real. Hardly anyone uses them much these days
David Aaronovitch

Debo was always my mother's second favourite Mitford sister. She felt that Deborah was a good sort - a kind of People's Aristocrat, probably saved for the nation and part owned by the National Trust. And she would have approved of the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire's column in the latest issue of the otherwise despised Spectator magazine, lamenting the closure of her local post office. Mum also liked Ken Livingstone and Ken, too, wants to keep post offices open.

Who doesn't, except - perversely - whichever government is in power at the time, and the Post Office itself? To try to search for argument about the pros and cons of branch closures is to discover the most one-sided debate in Britain. There are hundreds and hundreds of websites detailing campaigns to stop local closures. The Countryside Alliance, the Lib Dems, the Scots and Welsh Nats, local newspapers, most Tories, most Trots and a score or more Labour MPs, all agitating to prevent their local office closing.

Few express themselves so elegantly and so revealingly as Deborah Devonshire, whose rural office and shop in Edensor, on the Chatsworth Estate, sold its last stamp last week. Her article fused feeling with argument and regret with anger. “No more the postmaster with one elbow on the counter,â€

[andy2007]

Personally, I do use my local Post Offices (yes, amazingly there are still two to choose from near me!), and I know of a lot of others who do as well. But that isn't the point. Even if you only use the Post Office to collect your Pension via your Card (as many Pensioners still do), it is still a vital Service.

Those who seek to blame the Public for the decimation of the Post Office Network, need to think very hard about the importance of these Services, and bear in mind that if they live long enough. They too, will end up unable to drive, and will lament their lack of forsight. The blame for the Post Office closures lies firmly with the Government. They should be subsidising the Post Offices, so that they can be there to serve the Public, for generations to come.