Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Pope
Why would I vote to close post offices, indeed why would anyone vote for such a thing? To the best of my knowledge there has never been a vote on post office closures as they are, in fact, being closed by Post Office Ltd rather than directly by the Government (this is not to excuse the Government from all responsibility, just to point out that the Government is not actually doing the closing).
Some facts: there are 14,000 post offices of which 9,500 lose money and are subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of half a million pounds a day, every day; many postmasters want to leave as they, understandably, don't want to run what are in effect failing businesses; fewer and fewer of us actually use post offices - 4 out of 5 pensioners get their pension paid into the bank for example, and like many people I renewed my car tax online. As a result of all this 2,500 post offices are closing.
At the end of this process the Tories tabled a motion saying how terrible it all is. It didn't propose saving any post offices, nor did it suggest how we might pay for saving post offices, or even propose who might run them, nor did it mention that 3,500 post offices closed when they were in office. In short it was stunt and I didn't fall for it. It is simply untrue to say that I voted against a plan to save post offices.
Come on, it's bad enough being blamed for what I have done without adding to the charge sheet stuff that's not true!
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May I ask why you did not attend the debate on the the matter that you voted against?
There were many ideas put forward by both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, in fact even Labour. It's simply not true that the ideas had no substance. Here are just a few, many more were mentioned in the debate:
Keep our Post Offices open - Campaign - Conservative Party
You say postmasters don't want to run them, well no wonder, what's the payoff they get again, 60k? and threats to not give them the payoff if they resist closure, which they have no real choice in, hence its better to take the 60 grand option.
You might say its a 'stunt'. If this is a reason to vote against it, then I think its a very poor show. You should be voting for the constituents, to save their post offices, not voting against it because your party might look weak.