Hang your heads at PO axe sham

Aug 15 2008

LABOUR Members of Parliament should stop shedding crocodile tears, and hang their collective heads in shame over the recently announced post office closures.

These closures are a direct result of Labour government policies over the last 10 years, which have resulted in the current predicament of the Post Office network; this includes Crown Offices, urban sub-post offices and rural post offices.

Unfortunately the people and post office workers do not have ownership and have lost the so-called “People’s Post Office”.

The current Post Office TV advertising is an insult to the public’s intelligence. This involves paying TV personalities and actors huge fees to parade in a phoney made-up post office where there never seems to be a queue of customers (unlike the real world). The people sadly are the last thing on PO chiefs’ minds, and dare I say MPs.

The past three Labour Governments at Westminster have systematically broken the back of a once great public service by encouraging the removal of pension and benefit payments through local post offices. The final straw was the Home Office taking away TV licence business from the PO network.

Having already been through the so-called consultation process during the closure of the Crown Office in Sandgate Ayr, I can only say the whole process is a sham.

Post Watch Scotland is just another toothless government quango with no real powers to alter any programme of closures. I hope I am proved wrong, but I predict no post office closure will be prevented.

Councillor Alec Oattes

Girvan and South Carrick Ward

South Ayrshire Council