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Let’s keep politics out of battle to save post office
• THE number of letters you have published indicates clearly how strongly many people feel about the threatened closure of Essex Road post office (A bit late for MP to enlist in campaign to save post office, January 25). Because I live in north Islington I do not use this branch, but our Pensioners’ Forum supports the demand on behalf of our hundreds of members living in south Islington.
Our charity is non-political, and the maintenance of a full network of post offices should not be a political issue. They serve a wide variety of people from all parties. So our Forum gladly supports Bridget Fox’s campaign to prevent the closure of the Essex Road branch, and also that of Islington South MP Emily Thornberry, however belated it may be.
Because of their reduced mobility, pensioners and the disabled, numbering between them more than 10 million people nationwide, have particular reason to want neighbourhood post offices maintained.
This is why the National Pensioners’ Convention has consistently opposed post office closures. It should perhaps be mentioned too that many pensioners cannot or do not use the internet as an alternative to sending and receiving letters through the post. I do not see why they should be obliged to do so.
A conveniently wide network of post offices is surely very valuable to many businesses as well as individuals. As I, among many others, have waited half an hour outside the Upper Street branch, I have wondered how many employees are obliged to waste this working time away from their offices.
I have also felt much sympathy for the post office workers behind the counters as they work without pause, trying to reduce the patient queues. These employees deserve our thanks for their efficient and unceasing work, rather than redundancy.
Angela Sinclair
Secretary, Islington Pensioners’ Forum
• I’VE heard it all now – Emily Thornberry is trying to save our post office. She failed in St Peter’s Street and now she is doing battle supposedly on our behalf in Essex Road.
Who does she think she is fooling? The Labour government is closing post offices. Not the council. Not the Liberal Democrats. Only the Labour Party.
Who does she think the Post Office will listen to? Emily Thornberry or Gordon Brown, her boss? Did they listen to Chris Smith when he tried to suggest he was fighting for Islington and its post offices? Of course, they’ll do as told by the Prime Minister.
Will someone please explain to me exactly what the benefit is in having a Labour MP who can’t deliver from her own government what hard-working people want and expect from Labour?
I know the Tribune is always complaining about the council, but I think it tries hard and it does keep its promises.
I am backing Bridget Fox’s campaign for the post offices. At least she’s taken the gloves off and is really taking the government on.
Sheila Harrison
St Peter’s Street, N1
• OF course, the closure of Essex Road post office has nothing to do with the Lib Dems, just like the closure of the other shops they have sold off to the highest bidder has nothing to do with the Lib Dems.
Naturally, the loss of the specialist shops in Camden Passage, despite council policies aimed at protecting them, has nothing to do with the Lib Dems.
Again, the filling up of Islington with small luxury flats, instead of affordable housing for families (which, you may find hard to believe, is council policy), is nothing to do with the Lib Dems. In fact, to borrow from TS Eliot’s Macavity, they always have an alibi, and one or two to spare, and whatever time the deed took place, the Lib-DemoCATs are not there!
Cllr Barry Edwards
Labour, Holloway ward
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