I'm called many things, but it's a long time since I was called a "hypocrite".
The offence which provoked this charge was that I had supported the calls for a Post Office in Blackburn to remain open whilst being a member of a government which has imposed financial constraints on the Post Office which are bound to mean that some Post Office branches will close.
How do I plead? Not guilty. Here's why.
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First, the overall position of the Post Office.
That's changed dramatically, not because of any act of government, but because of the internet.
It has revolutionised the way that all of us do business - including the conduct of our personal transactions.
When I was growing up no one in our family had a bank account.
The same went for most, if not all of our neighbours.
Everything was done in cash; and the local post office was crucial to everyone's lives.
Computers were in their infancy. Huge, room-filling machines.
No one had even dreamt of a desk-top computer, still less that this kit tied to some very clever maths would allow instantaneous communication for everyone with virtually everyone else.
But that's all now happened.
And the Post Office, a great and important institution, whose prime business was based - literally - on paper has been hit in consequence harder than most.
The result of all this is that four million fewer people are now using the Post Office than they did two years ago.
The change has been that fast.
The Post Office lost £2million a week in 2005, rising to £3.5 million in 2006.
But - and it's a big but - people still need the services which Post Offices provide.
For some, especially older people and others who are on low incomes, it's essential.
They may not have a bank account; or in any case, find that drawing their pension in cash, as they've always done for years, is what they expect; and the process of making the trip gets them out of the house too.
It's not idle to say that still, for quite a number, the local post office is seen as a focal point of their community.
But how do you square that circle, of declining use overall, with the need to maintain a network?
It's not easy. What the government has sought to do is to use taxpayers' money to support the network - £2billion since 1999; a further £1.7billion up to 2011.
This money is not the government's - but yours. If it's spent in this way - as we judge it has had to be - it then can't be spent on other deserving programmes, like health care, schools or transport.
What have been called "access criteria" have been set down to ensure that a viable network continues, and that vulnerable consumers in deprived urban and rural areas still have a service.
There's a consultation process when a post office is ear-marked for closure, with an independent watchdog - "Postwatch" - able to intervene.
And it's because of that process that I am completely unapologetic about supporting the case that one particular post office - that on Preston New Road, Blackburn - should stay open.
I've never argued that no post office should ever close.
That's simply not practical.
But none of us is signed up to the proposition that because rapidly declining business is bound to mean a smaller network, we have to accept the initial proposals from the Post Office's executives for named post offices to close as some kind of holy writ, incapable of change.
Posted by: nostradamous, B/burn on 6:51pm Fri 7 Mar 08
I not so sure that we should be so drastic in these closures,perhaps there could be found,a way which would cut running costs and keep this service open,maybe the government could add other items to a post offices work,the only thing that seems to have ever suplimented a POs icome have been either grocers or sweet stores maybe they could be incorperated into services like say Newsagents and maybe other simular outlets,because i do feel it is unsafe to lose these services,why because we are tending to completly rely on the internet for nearly everything,yes my carbon footprint shrinks every week by the next new thing i find to use the internet for,BUT and it is a very,very big but the other week my broadband went down and it took over a week to rectify the problem i was completly lost,we can become to reliant on a very dicey service,and i now look back at the outragous d
Dr Beeching and the ripping apart of our now much needed rail network,,lets learn guys BY MISTAKES OF THE PAST i am not to sure that we have the infrostructure to cope with us all being on line at the mo.
I not so sure that we should be so drastic in these closures,perhaps there could be found,a way which would cut running costs and keep this service open,maybe the government could add other items to a post offices work,the only thing that seems to have ever suplimented a POs icome have been either grocers or sweet stores maybe they could be incorperated into services like say Newsagents and maybe other simular outlets,because i do feel it is unsafe to lose these services,why because we are tending to completly rely on the internet for nearly everything,yes my carbon footprint shrinks every week by the next new thing i find to use the internet for,BUT and it is a very,very big but the other week my broadband went down and it took over a week to rectify the problem i was completly lost,we can become to reliant on a very dicey service,and i now look back at the outragous d
Dr Beeching and the ripping apart of our now much needed rail network,,lets learn guys BY MISTAKES OF THE PAST i am not to sure that we have the infrostructure to cope with us all being on line at the mo.
Posted by: top cat, burnley on 11:13pm Sat 8 Mar 08
JACK STRAW NEVER BEEN CALLED A HYPOCRITE??YOU DEAF OR BLIND JACK(YOU HYPOCRITE)ALL M.PS ARE...EUROPEAN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERRENCE IN BALI,YOU ALL HAVE 2 HOMES 2 CARS 5/6 OVERSEAS HOLIDAYS A YEAR,YOU ONLY WORK 100 DAYS A YEAR IF THAT,YOU CLAIM DOUBLE FOR EVERYTHING,YOUR EXEMPT FROM MOST STEALTH TAXES,YOU HAVE PRIVATE HEALTH CARE...............H
YPOCRITES..WITH A CAPITAL H
JACK STRAW NEVER BEEN CALLED A HYPOCRITE??YOU DEAF OR BLIND JACK(YOU HYPOCRITE)ALL M.PS ARE...EUROPEAN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERRENCE IN BALI,YOU ALL HAVE 2 HOMES 2 CARS 5/6 OVERSEAS HOLIDAYS A YEAR,YOU ONLY WORK 100 DAYS A YEAR IF THAT,YOU CLAIM DOUBLE FOR EVERYTHING,YOUR EXEMPT FROM MOST STEALTH TAXES,YOU HAVE PRIVATE HEALTH CARE...............H
YPOCRITES..WITH A CAPITAL H
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