Thursday, March 20, 2008

Labour MPs Let Down Southampton


Last night MPs rejected a Conservative motion in Parliament protesting at Labour plans to force the closure of 2,500 post offices by just 288 votes to 268, slashing the government's majority to 20.

Southampton’s two Labour MPs, Alan Whitehead and John Denham are being accused of hypocrisy for having campaigned to save post offices in the city whilst voting last night for the post office closures.

Our MPs are not standing up for the city. Once again when it comes to the crunch they are simply Gordon Brown’s voice in Southampton. Local communities in Southampton will be hit hard by these closures which will be very damaging and disruptive, particularly for elderly people.

The Conservatives are calling for the government’s closure programme to be suspended to allow a full revaluation of the process and work to be done to see where more business can be put into the post office network. For example this might involve working with Royal Mail or local councils.

The government is simply managing the decline of the post offices and we are arguing that they should be focused on building up the post office network so it becomes dependent more on its business rather than government subsidy.

Read more about keeping our post offices open.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My god its a letter box Jeremy!

Anonymous said...

Of course Jeremy, you are such a good boy that you would not disregard a whipped vote would you now, butter would not melt in your mouth, we will have to wait and see if your a hypocrit or not, when and IF you ever get elected to Parliament to represent Southampton Test. But then you might be just another loser like all the other Tories that have stood in Southampton Test and Itchen recently.