Save Our Post Office Campaigns

6 further post offices will be closed in Manchester it has been announced. These are Ladybarn PO, Parswood PO, Harpurhey PO, Lower Crumpsall PO, and Barlow Rd PO. Successful post offices are being closed all over Greater Manchester.

Last Saturday Manchester Conservatives protested against the planned closures of post offices, collecting signatures for the Conservative’s petition outside branches under threat. Lower Crumpsall PO on Waterloo St and Harpurhey PO on Rochdale Rd are thriving and an essential part of the community.

Lower Crumpsall post office on Waterloo Street has been run by the same family for 32 years and is successful and busy. Locals from the estate on Waterloo Street will be left without a vital service if this branch closes.  Harpurhey Sub Post Office Master Mr Bharat Keshwala is furious.

What’s crazy about the Lower Crumpsall plan, is that the Waterloo Street area is being redeveloped and population will be increasing substantially. There are new houses being built on all sides of the post office, and it is currently the only shop of its kind in the area. With that in mind, it seems crazy to be closing this vital service for local people when its use will clearly increase.

Conservative MPs proposed a motion to stop post office closures which was defeated by the government, with all local Labour MPs including Tony Lloyd and Grahmam Stringer voting against the Conservative proposal. Local Crumpsall resident Mr Nickson said “its a disgrace, they’re totally out of touch with the needs of local communities” 

Gareth Brown, a local, and regular user of Harpurhey Post Office said “I use this post office all the time, I never realised how lucky I was having one within walking distance, and as I don’t own a car it’s going to be a real problem for me if it closes”

 

 

Labour dishonesty

It’s incredible the lack of integrity that we see around us in politics, no wonder that faith in politicians under New Labour has fallen to an all time low.

I blogged a piece about government minister James Purnell posting on his website about how fantastic Gordon Brown’s last budget was, and how it would help families in his constituency, you know, the one with the removal of the 10p tax rate, which he referred to as a good thing! Well, now when you follow the link to the piece on his site you will find the following:

ADODB.Field error ‘800a0bcd’

Either BOF or EOF is True, or the current record has been deleted. Requested operation requires a current record.

/news-1.asp, line 117

So he removed the offending story….not really surprising for the man famous for the photo-shopped photo of him at a Hospital that was essentially ‘faked’, and not to mention the ‘fake’ constituents who wrote letters of support on a campaign, used as evidence, when they were actually made-up by one of his assistants….

Congestion Charge – the flaws in the plan.

Recent newspaper articles have focused on how few people the council says will actually end up paying the charge. If this is the case, how on earth is it going to fulfill its purpose of being the income generator to repay the 1.8 billion loan? It it doesn’t pay its way, charges will go up and the area expanded (although its already so huge its hard to see how they’ll do that)

Other likely outcomes are that the fines will be huge – yet to be declared.

In the list of people who wouldn’t pay the charge, the absence of private hire cabs (who are exempt in London, but seemingly not in Manchester) seems incredible. When we’re encouraging people to not take a car into the city, shouldn’t people have more access to a cab, not less? At a time when it seems huge fuel prices are here to stay, it seems crazy to penalise those further who earn a living from driving. 

Nobody is really asking the right questions about this in the media. The balance is between how much the charge will generate in revenue, versus the cost of the loan. If it doesn’t cover it, whats the point, its just a huge waste of money. In order to try on the right side of public opinion the council tries to make it appear as if hardly anyone (apart from private cabs) will pay it. Lets have some serious answers about how many cars will need to pay the charge in order to service the debt, and what happens if this isn’t meet, is it simply added onto our council tax bills?

The weird and wonderful world of James Purnell

James Purnell is an interesting character, after coming to poplar fame initially because of the faked hospital photo scandal and fake letters from constituents, its interesting to see what else there is to say about him.

There are a couple of entertaining recent posts about him here:

http://tamesidemafia.blogspot.com/2008/05/james-purnells-great-escape.html

http://tamesidemafia.blogspot.com/2008/05/james-purnells-blonde-ambition.html

Another interesting link is here where Purnell writes after Gordon Brown’s final budget as chancellor where he scrapped the 10p tax rate, that it was an excellent budget for Tameside….lets hope Purnell never becomes chancellor!