Post office closures: New Labour lies & spin

Another fine example of the self serving hypocritical bastards of New Labour who rule us:

Telegraph:

Ministers have been accused of "rank hypocrisy" after it emerged that a third of Gordon Brown's Cabinet are campaigning against Government plans to axe post offices in their own constituencies. The Government said the proposals to close 2,500 branches in Britain were 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 move has caused widespread public opposition and The Daily Telegraph can disclose that seven Cabinet members oppose the plans in their constituencies. Some have organised petitions to spare their post offices from closure. The group includes some of Mr Brown's most senior colleagues - Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary; Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary; and Geoff Hoon, the Chief Whip. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary; Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister; John Denham, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, are also campaigning, or have campaigned, to save their local post offices. Three of the seven - Miss Smith, Mr Straw and Miss Jowell - were members of the Cabinet when the plans were approved last May.

Details of closures in the constituencies of Mr Brown and the ministers in charge of the programme - John Hutton, the Business Secretary, and Pat McFadden, the postal affairs minister - are still under wraps.

Jacqui Smith boasts on her website how she organised a petition signed by 1,000 local people against the closure of two post offices in Batchley and Abbeydale in her West Midlands constituency of Redditch three years ago.

Well thats jolly fucking decent of her, nice to see that she on the one hand supports cuts in post offices then puts her herself out as the socialist flag waver out to stop government cuts in her area. Although the website does not say if she went for a kebab afterwards?

In a press release, entitled "The Fight for local Post Offices", she says: "I hope that the Post Office stop the closure of these branches. The communities need the facilities to be improved and supported, not shut."

The two branches were closed in 2005. However, her spokesman said that she still felt that it was "appropriate for her as MP for Redditch to make representations on behalf of her constituents" over post office closures.

So in short they were closed anyway and the whole thing was a done deal, with some fine spin and lies on the part of Jacqui Smith.

Best comment go's to a spokesman for John Denham, who said the minister "supports the Government's policy but on a local level he takes [plans for post office closures] on a case-by-case basis as it affects his constituents".

There you go, New Labour socialism in action.

.